Avalice Chronicles Volume 2
by Ultrablockstar
Summary: Milla and Kai arrives at the Imperial City of Zhōngyāng, however they soon discover that there's more to this city than they expect, as Milla reunites with someone from her past. (Original Characters belong to their respective owners)
1. An Old Friend

**-1-**

Milla thinks to herself as she stares directly at the familiar panda girl wearing a dark purple cloak with dark blue hair, purple eyes, and beige fur. Milla remains motionless as the rabbit next to her calls out to the panda.

"Norah! Is that you?" The rabbit calls out.

Milla's eyes widen, caught by surprise that the rabbit knew the panda girl, her expression remains negative as she feels her stomach turning however not of fear but anger, she continues to think to herself, _Norah, what are you doing here?! Why does this rabbit know you?_

The panda girl approaches both the hound and rabbit, the girl keeps her attention towards the rabbit "I was wondering where you were! So Vix what have you been doing all day anyways?" asks the panda girl.

It takes the panda girl a moment to notice the basset hound glaring at her, the girl's expression changes in response. Vix notices the two girls looking towards each other and intervenes, "Norah, I will like to introd-"

Norah interrupts the rabbit's introduction "I know who she is." she turns her attention back towards the hound "So how long have it been, huh Milla?"

Milla keeps her serious demeanor "Three years."

"So I see you found some new friends, you even saved the world. I have to admit I was quite impressed to hear that you actually did something courageous like that for a change, you're usually very shy, timid or cowardice."

"I'm not a coward, you know why I couldn't help you three years ago!" Milla argues.

Norah dismisses the hound's argument and changes the subject "So what exactly are you doing here at Zhōngyāng?"

"I'm doing a favor… for a friend…"

"A friend huh? Alright, though since we haven't seen each other in about three years, I guess you wouldn't mind me and Vix hanging around for the rest of this evening. We can catch up on what we've been doing these past few years." Norah implies with a grin on her face and crossing her arms, as though she was deliberately trying to annoy Milla.

"Fine, I have no problem with that, as soon as I find Kai, that is."

"Kai?"

As soon as Milla and Norah finish conversing with each other the group sees a somewhat frustrated-looking siberian husky running towards them, wearing a grey cloak and lugging a sniper rifle on his back, "Damnit Milla, this is the last time… I lose you in… this forsaken city!" the husky says, breathing from exhaustion.

"Oh Kai, you ran all this way, just to see if I'm okay?" Milla says with a large smile on her face, "Though you shouldn't be tired already from just running, but you are carrying that heavy rifle on your back, so I guess you're excused."

"Hey, I didn't come here because I care! I came here because I didn't want to be responsible for one Avalice's so called heroines' well being." the husky retorts.

"Right, anyways this is-" Milla reluctantly introduced before being interrupted by Kai.

"_You_!" The husky says with a raspy voice pointing directly at Norah, the panda girl gestures with a smirk which seemed to have annoyed Kai just the same.

"You know this guy?" Norah asks Milla, before turning her attention towards Kai "So how did you like my little gesture back there, I bet you liked it."

"Milla you know this girl?"

"She've known me for eight years now."

"E-eight?!"

Milla gestures with a faint nod, Kai remains flabbergasted about how well both girls knew each other…

Norah snaps the husky out of his stupor and responds "Why so worried about Milla, oh right!" the panda sarcastically continues "You don't care for her, don't you?"

Kai ignores the panda's banter for a moment and notices the rabbit next to her, _so this is the mage, he does looks like someone of the Móshù shī._

_I still don't trust him, perhaps this Norah girl will know more._

Kai turns his attention back towards Norah, "Mind if I ask how you know this guy" he asks pointing his head towards Vix.

Vix responds "I found Norah on her own, about three years ago. Although she was reluctant to accept my help at first, we decided to travel together, simple as that."

"I'm sure there's more to it, anyways I'm assuming you're a mage. I'll take it you have **EARTH **affinity."

Norah makes a serious expression with Milla perplexed with Kai's knowledge of energy manipulation, the panda girl responds in Vix's defense "That's none of your business!"

Vix makes a mellow smile "It's alright Norah," he relaxes Norah, "As for my affinity, I'm impressed that you know enough about energy manipulation, you certainly look like an intelligent person."

"Hm, so I'll take that as a yes. So what are _you_ guys doing here, I can tell both of you aren't from around here."

"I should say the same to you Kai."

"Touche." the husky responds, gesturing with an offensive glare towards the rabbit, Vix responds with a similar face..

Milla finally interrupts "Okay, so are we going to hang out, or something?"

"Yeah, as much as I'd like to talk about how timid or naive Milla is, I would like to enjoy the rest of my day." Norah retorts.

Milla responds with a faint growl, as Vix and Kai nods in agreement.

Norah continues "Alright! So where should we go?" the panda girl ponders for a moment "Oh! Maybe Milla should recommend a place for us?"

"Eh, why me?!" Milla responds.

"Well you are an oh so great 'savior of Avalice', so in your honor, we'll let you choose where we can hang out."

The basset hound looks around and notices a ferris wheel in the distance "How about that ferris wheel?"

"Alright! Let's go you guys!"

Vix follows Norah to the ferris wheel; as Kai catches up to Milla he asks her a question "What was that about?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Milla exclaims..

"I mean that girl, Norah. That panda girl seem extra hostile towards you."

"I don't want to talk about it, I want to be left alone for the rest of the night."

"Alright then, fine by me."

As the group enters one of the ferris wheel carts, the distraught hound starts to think about her history with Norah:

_Norah, she used to be my closest friend, but then she changed. She were never this mean, but I'll never forgive her for what she did three years ago._

_I would've never agreed to help Vix if I knew she were his companion, I shouldn't blame Vix for how she is. They may be friends but that doesn't mean they're the same._

_Now that I think about it, Lilac and Carol isn't so different from her, maybe I'm the hypocrite, perhaps she have a reason to be so hostile towards me._

_NO! What am I thinking?! She have no right to treat me like that, she knows why I couldn't help her then and I'm not going to be tricked again!_

_I'M NOT TIMID, NAIVE OR WEAK! NOT ANYMORE!_

The more aggressive and angry her thoughts became the more she felt a cold sensation on her chest, this feeling was familiar to her, she tries to calm herself.

_This feeling, I need to remember to relax, I need to stay focused. Breath Milla, breath…_

Milla makes a deep but faint breath; Vix notices the movement of the hound's chest as she breaths, his expression becomes serious, _She's angry, but she doesn't want anyone to notice. Could she be… _

_Surely not, she's one of the people who saved Avalice, she couldn't have it._

After the ferris wheel, the group went somewhere to eat, after they ate they said their goodbyes.

"Well c'ya later" Norah says in a manner that annoyed Kai, but Milla remains silent, the hound stood there petrified.

Kai ignores the still hound and retorts "Still haven't told us what you're doing here."

"I have… business"

Milla's eyes lit up and responds suddenly, catching the mellow rabbit and monotonic husky by surprise "What are you planning Norah!" the hound yells, the panda girl's carefree expression remains unphased.

"Guess you'll have to find out."

"Norah, please, don't do anything stupid."

"Me? Doing something stupid, highly unlikely."

"Bye." Mila finally says as she starts to walk away.

"Farewell!" Vix calls, Milla makes a faint smile in response before switching back to her depressed state, _At least I met someone nice_.

* * *

It was about ten o'clock, Milla and Kai finds an inn to stay at, after paying about five hundred gems for each visitor for the remainder of the festival both dogs began heading towards their respective rooms.

"I'm going to sleep now, I need to relax is all." Milla tells Kai as she enters her room, the husky responds with a short nod of his head and leaves the hound alone.

Milla begins to unpack and undress as she keeps her katana leaning against the wall. With only her tank top and capris on, she begins to settle down and falls asleep.

_I hope tomorrow will go better, Norah what are you going to do… _


	2. Forgetten Past

**-2-**

It was windy afternoon at Dragon Valley.

A little hound girl, at the very young age of four years old, wearing only a striped leotard with asymmetrically colored bracelets and anklets was playing in the forest. Still learning how to control her senses, the combined sounds and scents of the wildlife and weather pestered the young girl. Despite her young age, the hound seemed self aware and knowledgeable of her surroundings.

As the hound ran across the lonesome forest chasing a couple of birds, she noticed an unconscious panda girl. The panda girl seemed slightly older wearing a dark pink T-shirt and black shorts with pink outlines. The hound didn't know how to act, she never seen another girl before, in fact she never seen another person before other than the faint memories of her parents. She taps the panda to see if it was alive but to no avail, she finally tries to muster up what she assumes is words, "Hello?"

The panda girl begins to move, catching the hound by surprise but she remains at the panda's side. The panda regains consciousness and looks around "Where… where am I?"

The panda girl notices the semi-frightened hound girl, "huh, who are you?" she demanded.

The hound remains silent.

"I'm sorry for being mean, are you okay?." she said.

The hound stood silent.

"Can you talk, at least a little?"

The hound gestures with a short nod.

"Um OK, let's start over, alright?"

The hound tilts her head in confusion.

"My name is Norah, what's yours?" the panda girl said with a smile on her face.

The hound smiles back and tried to muster up words again, Norah noticed the hound's struggle, the hound tries to speak "Mill-"

"Mill?" the panda asked, the hound shook her head in frustration.

"Mill-ah.", the hound struggles to say her name, even though she seems to know it.

"Milla?"

The hound furiously nods her head in glee, "My… name… is Milla."

"Nice to meet you Milla, so what are you doing here?"

"I don't… know."

"Where's your parents?"

"I don't know."

Thunder began to rumble catching both Milla and Norah off guard.

The spooked hound ran away, however the panda followed right behind her, "It's okay! It's just some thunder, it won't hurt you!" Norah called.

The two little girls found a fell log large enough to fit them both, they hide inside the log from the pouring rain.

Milla starts to fall asleep to the soothing sounds of the rain colliding against the ground.

* * *

The second day of the Annual Qin Establishment Festival have began. Milla starts to wake up and takes a brief look at the clock in her room, which reads half past seven in the morning, _Is it really that early?_

_Norah, I really hope you won't do anything dumb… _

Milla puts on her crop top, gloves and beige cloak with her katana sheathed underneath the cloak. She walks out of the inn noticing a dead silence throughout the entire outer layer of the capital, this pleases her as she takes advantage of the peace and quiet.

The hound finds a lone bench and takes time to relax, she makes a deep breath and starts to eat an apple she saved in her backpack. The chilly morning winds and nutrition of her apple keeps her calm and collected.

"I see you're alright now."

The hound hears a familiar monotonous voice, which for the first time made her happy.

Kai, surprised to see the smile on Milla's face, responds to the expression "Are you actually happy to see me?"

"Yeah, but is one time a big deal?" Milla retorts

"Hm, not really."

"It's a nice morning isn't it?"

"I guess…"

"What's wrong?" Milla says noticing the husky's blank expression.

"Nothing", Kai says with monotonous voice trying to prevent Milla from sensing his suspicions, _That Vix character, something about him is off… _

"You're alright?" Milla tries to snap Kai off of his thoughts.

"I told you it was nothing, anyways today is likely going to have the most guests, mainly because today is when everyone head over to the royal palace, pretty much a once in a lifetime opportunity."

"Well I guess we should go." Milla considers

Kai shrugs his shoulders, "I guess we should, but let's not draw any attention to ourselves."

Milla makes a faint nod in response.

"Let's get back to the Inn, we'll start heading out when there's slightly more people. You think you'll be able to handle the crowds this time?"

"Sure, I'm kind'a hungry anyways."

* * *

As morning passes a magnitude of people begins to accumulate the crowded streets as commoners and aristocrats alike begin to make their way to the royal palace. It was about noon when Milla and Kai finally enters the residential and educational districts, which as they expected consists of several villas, mansions, large houses, schools and universities.

Similar to the outer layer, decorations, banners and lanterns dressed the buildings with several warm colors. Several mobile shop carts and food tenders was among the crowd, both canines decides to purchase something to eat.

Both dogs eat their respective snacks as they notice a slightly larger amount of soldiers and even some royal guards. The royal guards was more strict and hostile than the ordinary soldiers who lacked any jurisdiction in the area, Milla and Kai witnesses in mild disgust the cruel attitude the royal guards had over the commoners and occasionally some middle classed citizens; as much as they wanted to help, both canines knew they couldn't interfere.

Milla stomach turns, as she watches the mistreatment of commoners, "It's not fair, what did they do?"

"Don't look so surprised, this isn't the first time peasants was treated like dirt." Kai explains.

Milla remains silent with a disappointed expression on her face.

At around a quarter before one, a royal guard was arguing with someone, both dogs tries to get a better look and to their surprise it was Jing!

"This produce is unacceptable!" The guard says as he spits the food out.

"Even though you are not pleased with my harvest, doesn't mean others won't like it." Jing retorts

"Shut up! Don't talk back you insolent little worm, this is a rip off! Nothing you say can change that!"

"You have no right or reason to treat me this way."

Out of spite the royal guard tips down Jing's food cart, stomping on whatever article of food rolls down in front of him.

The following events makes Milla's blood boil to the highest degree, she clenches her fist with her teeth showing in an aggressive manner, Kai notices the hounds outraged behavior.

"Milla, relax!" Kai warns Milla.

Milla ignores the husky's warning, purely out of instinct Milla dashes towards the scene.

"MILLA STOP!" Kai yells in vain quickly running after the awol hound, _Crap, what is she thinking?! This is NOT going to end well at all._

As the guard begins to strike the middle aged hare, out of nowhere a hound with a katana drawn points her palm at the guard, assaulting him with a psychic blast.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Milla demands.

Jing remains utterly surprised by Milla's actions, a large amount of soldiers and royal guards begins to surround the hound and hare, but not before Kai reaches the hound first with his dual pistols drawn, _I can't believe we're in this mess_.

The guests and employees watches in horror as they see several soldiers surrounding the two children.

"Surrender! You're surrounded!" A soldier demands.

Kai ponders a moment, as he see's the frightened hare behind him with Milla standing her ground waiting for him to take action, he makes a faint sigh, "If you let this man free… we'll surrender."

Milla is caught by surprise with Kai's bargaining, just as she was about to protest the husky gestures with a nod, with that she submits.

The guards think for a moment, "We accept your terms"

Both canines drops their weapons as two soldiers collects them.

Jing makes a worried expression "Thank you, I wish you luck, you'll need it. I'll try to see if Wei can do anything."

The soldier continues "You'll have to answer to the empress, since you assaulted a royal guard and during our establishment festival of all times!"


	3. The Empress of Qin

**-3-**

_Edited by RaceProUK_

The crowd of people witnesses Milla and Kai being sent directly to the royal palace for questioning with two of the soldiers carrying the canines' weaponry. The escorted dogs finally reach the center of the city consisting of not only the royal palace but also several monuments, libraries, courts, government buildings, houses, gardens and even a temple.

On entering the palace, Milla and Kai find themselves in a scarlet hallway, lined with pillars of a similar hue, decorated with golden swirls; the guards escort the canines along the gilt-edged purple carpet that runs central to the white marble floor. As they approach the golden door at the far end, it opens slowly, revealing the throne room; the room is decorated similarly to the hallway, with the addition of plants arranged along the walls. At the center of the opposing wall of the throne room is the throne itself, resplendent in gold and flanked by two large fountains.

Sitting uniformly on the throne was a female red panda wearing a violet dress with a few pink sashes, pink shoes, a golden choker and earrings decorated with amethysts. The woman had red fur with white markings, ginger hair and purple eyes. Next to the red panda was a grey rodent wearing a blue robe with black shoes, he was holding a clipboard and seems to be a member of the royal council.

The lead guard who escorted the two canines begins to speak, "Introducing her highness, Empress Yasmine Wang of Qin!" the guard announces.

Milla and Kai bows down in respect, Kai attempts to give the empress a good first impression "It's an honor to meet you Empress Yasmine."

The empress responds "Um, thank you."

Milla and Kai is left surprise with the empress' informal response, Kai begins to think to himself, _What kind of Empress addresses her subjects like that?_

_That was a pretty informal thing to say and she didn't seem very confident, is she even qualified to even rule an empire?_

The people inside the throne room hear commotion just outside the throne door.

"What is that noise?" The empress asks.

The rodent next to her makes a faint smile, "It's our _third_ prisoner" he enlightens.

Milla and Kai are left stunned, "_Third_ prisoner?!" they say simultaneously.

The large golden doors open once more as two royal guards are seen restraining a panda girl by the arms; the girl was wearing a purple sleeveless shirt and skirt with gold outlines, dark purple boots and two bracelets with red gemstones; the two canines however recognizes the girl's face, it was Norah.

"Let go of me!" Norah protests "Let go of me you perverts! Have you ever heard of tying someone's hands behind their back or something you brutes!", Norah begins to swear as the two guards drags her to where the canines were.

Kai restrains himself from laughing at Norah's misfortune, Milla makes a disappointed expression.

One of the guards holding on to Norah makes an annoyed expression, "Geez, this girl have a colorful vocabulary…"

The other guard responds with a sigh "At least we're finally here…"

Norah is put next to the two canines, she's surprise to see the hound and husky with her, "So what are you in here for?"

Kai makes a response "I think that council member is about to answer that question for you."

The rodent coughs to grab the attention of the three children, "You three are here for your crimes against the Qin Empire, I am the head of the royal council and personal advisor to the empress, Kongzhi Dong."

"Mind if I ask what is she doing here?" Kai asks referring to Norah.

"She is here for attempting to steal from our royal treasury."

Both canines give the guilty panda girl a stern look which seemed to have successfully make Norah uncomfortable, the panda girl tries to defend herself, "In my defense I was only going to steal one thing, surely one gem won't make much of a difference."

"It doesn't matter what you was going to steal, thievery is still thievery." The rodent retorts.

"But-"

"No excuses! As for you two, I would like to know why you assaulted one of our guards." Kongzhi continues focusing his attention towards the two canines instead.

"Your guard was wrongfully attacking an innocent man, he had no right to treat him the way he did." Milla argues.

Yasmine makes a distraught face, this was the first time she heard of any of the guards being abusive towards the commoners; just when the empress was about to speak, Kongzhi advises against it, she remains silent as her advisor speaks for her, "Surely the royal guard you speak of had a reason to confront the person. Our royal guards will never commit such travesties otherwise they would be met with severe retribution; besides who do you think you are to commit such actions?"

Another guard walks up to Kongzhi and whispers in his ears, the advisor is surprised but displeased with what he heard, "So, one of the so called 'heroes of Avalice' stands before us, Milla Basset."

Milla is caught off guard by the advisor's sudden knowledge of her identity, "How do you…"

"Dear girl surely you should know by now that you can not hide who you are, especially as someone of your notoriety."

Kai intervenes "Notoriety?! I think you mean fame, she did save this planet from certain doom."

"Nonsense, this whole story about aliens and sentient machines is nothing more than propaganda from the origin kingdoms not only to defend grievous actions of Shuigang and their prince but also to allude people of Shang Mu's and Shang Tu's mistreatment of the Kingdom Stone."

"You can't be serious, those machines are ravaging your land and attacking your people, how can you deny their existence?!"

"Those machines are nothing more than abominations created by the origin kingdoms to convince us of this nonsense, this girl and her friends are frauds, simple as that. Now that's all said and done, all three of you will now be sent to prison for a very long time."

"Wait what?!" Norah protested "You can't do that!"

"What are you talking about?"

"She means that only the empress can make such orders, she's the one whose ruling this empire and therefore her word is law." Kai explains.

"Yeah, she should be the one to make that decision, she doesn't have to listen to _you_!" Milla continues.

"So what'll it be empress?" Kai asks.

Yasmine is surprised by the children's faith in her, she ponders for a moment.

"Surely I can trust you to make the right decision, your highness." Kongzhi says.

Yasmine takes another look at the three hopeful youths, however she knew they couldn't be freed, at least not easily…

"Give them a refurbished cell, tomorrow they will be sent to the arena and will fight for their freedom." the empress finally announce.

The rodent remains silent and submits to the empress' choice, he was obviously displeased with her decision, "As you wish your highness, I suppose we can cancel the speech. We will inform the citizens of this development, though I suppose we can allow them to stay in the aristocratic district."

The guards escorts the three children to their cell.

* * *

The prison cell was a round room with white walls, granite floors and a single reinforced window, they saw three twin sized beds at the center of the room surrounding a round table with a blue candle on top.

"Great, that was helpful!" Norah complains sarcastically.

"Actually, she did us a favor." Kai explains "She knew we had experience in combat so she figured that we'll at least have a chance at the arena."

"I guess you're right, though why couldn't she just let us go?"

"It wasn't the best action for her to take, she is the empress and letting go of three criminals out of pity wouldn't look good on her image."

"At least she gave us a nice cell."

Milla ponders a moment, she finally asks Norah about how she got arrested "Norah why did you try to steal from the treasury, also where is Vix?"

Norah responds "I needed to steal a valuable royal gem so I could sell it for about five thousand gems but Vix felt that it was too dangerous, I didn't listen. Vix stood behind, he's going to have a heart attack when he sees me in that arena, he's such a worry wart.

"The serves you right! You shouldn't steal from others!"

"You don't have the right to call me a thief, especially when you're traveling with _him_!" Norah points out the red scarf wrapped around Kai's arm.

Kai interferes "I'm not a kleptomaniac, you know!"

Milla remains silent unable to counter Norah's argument, she changes the subject "So what's with that symbol on your shoulder?"

Norah takes a quick look at the Chinese 火 symbol on her right shoulder, she responds "It's nothing, just something I got a few years back." Norah continues "Ironic how your heroism got you arrested like me, though."

"What do you mean my heroism got me arrested?!"

"Well you did attack a royal guard just for one man."

"Th-that doesn't mean anything! I had to help my friend!"

"You see! There's your hypocrisy; you know what, leave me alone!"

"Fine, then you leave me alone!"

Kai observes as he sees the two girls sits at opposite ends of the room, _Well, this is going well… _

_I just hope they cooperate at least at the arena tomorrow._

After a few hours, the three eventually fall asleep.

* * *

It was midnight and two cloaked figures met at one of the courtyards inside the palace.

One of the cloaked figures begin to speak "I know that it's… Ironic for me to ask for your assistance, but the empress is beginning to get too curious for her own good."

The other cloaked figure whose light purple eyes glowed through the obscurity of his black cloak responds "Is that so, and why should I help you?"

"Because, an old 'friend' of yours happens to be here and tomorrow she will be sent to the arena along with some friends. The empress may think that they are safe in that arena, however little does she know that she've given you a chance for redemption."

"Who exactly are we talking about?"

"Milla Basset."

The yellow eyed figure begins to make a sort of maniacal laughter after hearing the familiar name.

The other cloaked figure continues "Just remember who maintained your anonymity and provided you with your old 'toys'."

"As you wish."


	4. The Gauntlet

**-4-**

It was a nice sunny day at the Imperial City of Zhōngyāng, not a cloud in the sky. Everyone is rushing towards the Zhōngyāng Arena at the outskirts of the city, rumors were spreading that a group of children were arrested and the empress declared that they would have to fight for their freedom, it have been decades since anyone was sentenced to the arena, most offenders these days would be sent to prison. The one thing however that caught the people's attention was that one of the youths who was arrested happens to be one of the heroines who saved Avalice; hundreds, if not, thousands of people came to the arena just to see Milla Basset.

Milla, Kai and Norah hears the crowd's roars and shouts as they cheer Milla's name.

"You can't be serious." Norah says in a annoyed voice.

Kai makes a large sigh "So, sounds like we're going to give them a show." he infers with his usual monotonous voice.

"Sorry, I didn't know people will find out so quickly." Milla apologizes with a distraught tone.

"Well at least fighting wouldn't be too hard, I don't think ordinary guards or warriors are a match for us."

"As long as we don't kill anyone, I'll be fine."

"I doubt they would even let us, this isn't a gladiator match."

The large red wooden doors, with gold outlines, open and as the light shine through those doors; the three children makes their way to the center of the arena.

Zhōngyāng Arena was a rectangular complex made with red hardwood and light grey stone; consisting of four towers at the corners, two large buildings at both ends of the complex, and a fighting pit at the center.

The fighting area was surrounded by stone walls with eight red hardwood gates at the sides of the arena; dirt and occasionally grass covers the fighting area with an elevated stone tiled platform with a pillar at each corner of the stone platform. Spectators flanks the fighting area at the same sides as the wooden gates while the empress sits on a gold throne, at the far end of the complex, parallel to the entrance door the children arrived from.

Kongzhi stood next to the empress and began to speak, "Welcome fellow people of the Qin Empire, we apologize if the festival did not go as planned; as you may already know these three children have been charged with crimes against the empire, however her highness have chosen to give them a second chance, through battle!"

The crowd began to cheer in Milla's favor, "Milla! Milla! Milla!"

Empress Yasmine is amazed by the amount of praise and support the modest hound was getting from the crowd, Kongzhi however seemed displeased, "Enough!" the advisor demands, the crowd immediately became morbidly silent.

"So, when do we fight you're 'warriors'?" Norah says impatiently

The rodent responds with a dark smile which made the hound, husky and panda uneasy, "You won't be fighting guards or warriors, no. You'll be fighting something more _appropriate_." Kongzhi continues "Open the gates!".

As Kongzhi makes the command the eight gates at the sides of the fighting area began to open, everyone hears thumping sound, Milla immediately recognizes the sound, "That's not possible…" she says in disbelief.

"Milla, please tell me what we're hearing is not what I think we're hearing." Kai responds, all Milla could do is respond with a nod.

Norah stood there confused "Wait, what. What on Avalice is coming out of those gates?!" she asks, the thumping stops.

Everyone remained silent, "Wave 1 will begin now." Kongzhi announces.

Just as Kongzhi makes the announcement an obelisk appear out of each gate, the crowd watches in horror as the grotesque stone blue mutants stomps their way towards the group of children, jumping in large arcs and falling with so much force that shock waves emits from each landing.

Milla and co avoids the assaulting mutants as Kai notices his sniper rifle laying on the floor, _Really?! They could've at least treated my stuff properly… _

Kai makes a run for his firearm however three obelisks appears before him, the shock wave pushes him backwards. One of the obelisks begins to lunge it's heavy sharp leg at the stunned husky, Milla however makes an energy shield in the his defense,

"I can hold them off, get your rifle, quickly!" Milla says struggling to hold off the obelisk, the mutant responds by attempting to jump directly on top the hound. Kai grabs his rifle and aims at the obelisk attacking Milla, firing a reinforced bullet. The bullet pierces through the obelisk in midair, therefore killing it. The hound steps back as the dead mutant crash lands in front of her.

Both Milla and Kai is surprise to see that a smaller mutant didn't fly out of the corpse.

"How's that possible! I thought only I was…" Kai responds.

"You think someone else is rebuilding these machines and mutants." Milla asks.

"It's possible, but who else will have knowledge of these things?"

"Um, guys…" Norah calls as she avoids the rampaging obelisks, flailing Milla's katana, obviously not knowing how to wield it.

"Throw that sword at me Norah!" Milla calls as Kai continue to shoot the other two obelisks from before.

"I'm not throwing my only weapon!" The panda girl argues.

"Give me the katana!" Milla demands.

Norah reluctantly throws the katana towards Milla, the hound skillfully grabs the sword. As the obelisks lunges themselves at the hound, she quickly avoids the mutants and with a single thrust of her sword a glowing jade energy surrounds the blade leaving everyone flabbergasted including the suddenly worried council member next to the intrigued empress. Milla attacks the offending obelisks with a swift counter attack, cutting three of them to pieces with a powerful force of the psychic energy manifesting from the steel blade, _that's six down_, she thinks to herself. Milla notices the remaining two obelisks harassing the struggling panda girl.

Norah continue to run her way around the mutants with ease, but the obelisks' jumps had too much coverage, _Urgh, I can't keep running like this, I need to fight back or I'm dead._

_I can't though… _

Norah looks through the crowd of people out of frustration and notices a familiar person among the crowd, it was Vix Cole. The rabbit only gestures with a faint nod the moment the panda girl notices him.

The panda nods in return, _Alright let's do this, now these things are done for!_

Norah dodges the obelisk's attack, Milla and Kai are caught off guard by her sudden skill and flexibility. The rubies attached to the panda's bracelets begin to glow and in an instant her fists was engulfed in fire, she runs toward the mutant and attacks with a merciless barrage of powerful punches tenderising the obelisk to nothingness, the other obelisks performs it's attack and in response the panda girl creates two fireballs and aims directly at the monstrous creature, the final obelisk explodes like a firecracker.

"Huh, well she suddenly became very interesting." Kai responds with a monotonous tone, _So __**FIRE **__is her affinity, I can't deny that her fighting method is a bit aggressive, but effective._

The three youths catches their breath soon after they finished Wave 1, the crowd goes wild from their excellent performance, even Yasmine was ecstatic from the heart pounding action that Milla, Kai and Norah was displaying. Kongzhi eye began to twitch in disbelief as he remains silent attempting to keep his patience, "Wave 2 will now begin!" he announces.

Several carts holding DNA cannons began to appear from the gates, the guards positions the cannons so that they surround the fighters but not aiming directly at each other. The DNA cannons opens fire one at a time as Milla, Kai and Norah dodges the devastating purple helix blasts. Norah begins to run towards the cannons dodging each blast, she jumps and performs a sort of dive kick while her foot is engulfed in flames like her fists from before, the cannon is immediately destroyed from the impact. Kai takes advantage of the the lone DNA cannon's destruction and takes it's place, he begins to aim his rifle at one of the cannons and shoots them one at a time with his reinforced bullets. Milla positions herself so that her energy shield blocks most of the DNA cannons' attacks while Norah quickly takes out the few behind her with raging blasts of fire, Kai aims his rifle at the cannons in front of the hound's shield, after enough of the cannons stops attacking to recharge the hound swiftly responds by using her katana to neutralize the remaining DNA cannons.

"Wave 3!" Kongzhi hesitantly announces, giving Milla and co little time to recuperate.

While the group was fighting their way through the third wave, Kongzhi begins to worry, "Excuse me empress, I need to go somewhere quick, I'll return momentarily. Every time they pass a wave simply announce the following wave." he politely informs Yasmine.

"Yeah, yeah OK. You can do whatever you need to do I'll just be here watching and announcing each wave." Yasmine responds obviously more preoccupied with the fights, for the first time in years the empress was enjoying herself; impressed with Milla's, Kai's and Norah's skill, spirit, and determination.

Kongzhi makes a sigh in response. He walks down the stairs to the subterranean pathways underneath the arena reaching a large chamber which could be described as a workshop of sorts, there the light purple eyed cloaked figure, that he met in the palace courtyard last night, was there working on some kind of large machine covered by a canvas.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Kongzhi says angrily "Your machines were suppose to dispose of those pests, especially the basset hound!"

"You should've have told me about the others, besides it seems that dog learned some new tricks."

"I wouldn't have to tell you such details if you actually made effective weapons!"

"Remember who you're talking to, I could _kill_ you easily, but don't worry I have something special for that pestering child."

"You better, the more that girl is around the empress the more I'm losing my grip on her, I will not lose what I worked so hard to achieve because of some bratty child."

Kongzhi recollects himself and walks away, the cloaked figure ignores the outraged rodent and continues on his work.

* * *

Kongzhi returns to the empress and to his surprise he sees her enthusiastically announcing the next wave, "Wave 8 everybody!" as Yasmine announces the next wave the crowd cheers and goes wild, _This can't be happening, relax I haven't lost control of the situation yet. I'll just let her highness continue announcing each wave._

Among the crowd was Wei and Jing as they observe the valiant efforts of Milla, Kai and Norah and their fights against obelisks, DNA cannons, gansekis, seekers, turretus mkIIs, mutant irises, and a few other machines.

"It seems this crowd is enjoying this, don't you agree?" Jing asks Wei

"I have to admit she is an impressive fighter and her companions aren't half bad."

"You act like as though you've seen better."

"Well, there's Jin."

"Right, I suppose he did give Milla some training."

"I'm just happy to see the empress so enthusiastic."

"Ah, she have been… lifeless… lately."

"Indeed, it was as though she doesn't have a will of her own, but it seems Milla makes her happy. I think this is why Jin sent her here in the first place."

"To give up seeing an old friend though… "

"Yes, Jin would have loved to have seen her again, but he knows what's best for this empire and it's people. Even though he wasn't born in this land he still sacrificed everything for it, but would you rather know your friend is happy from a distance, than see her depressed in person?"

"I suppose you are right, let's wish Milla and Kai good luck then."

It was wave 10 now and Milla and co was up against an arachnidroid, "This thing again?!" Kai says in frustration.

"Care to enlighten me?" Norah asks.

"Well, we kind of saved the leader of Xīchéng's daughter from this thing back at the Lotus Forest."

"This time we won't have as much trouble!" Milla responds in a determined tone.

"Well, you do have me now." Norah brags.

The arachnidroid aims it's two turrets attached to it's back at the group, shooting a barrage of powerful explosive bullet at the youths, "That's new!" Kai says.

The mechanical spider lunges it's legs at Milla, the hound avoids the attack but the mechanical limbs doesn't stick to the ground, the force of the strike however was strong enough to cause a minor shock waves like the one from four months ago. Norah summons two large fireballs orbiting around her which she launches towards the arachnidroid, but the machine was left unphased.

"I tried that before." Kai notes.

"Then I'll just attack it directly!" Norah retorts.

The panda girl launches herself up on top of the hull of the spider and begins mashing it with a fury of fiery fists of fire, meanwhile Milla uses her katana to cut off the legs of the mechanical arachnid, Kai aims his sniper rifle at the disabled spider and fires a powerful bullet directly at the head of the machine causing it to explode. Milla and Norah runs for cover as the extreme explosion causes a cloud of smoke and dust to cover the fighting area.

It takes a few minutes for the smoke to clear, with Milla and Norah intact.

"Wave 11!" The empress announces with such enthusiasm that she completely ignores the advisor next to her.

The yellow eyed figure hears the empress' cheerful announcement and the cheering that followed, "Under control, huh?" he continues as he makes a maniacal laugh "It doesn't matter, the real show will begin soon."

This wave was suspiciously easy, everyone including the empress and the youths looks in confusion as they observe a simple combination of turretus, dragonflies, fireflies, cacteon, hoppers and slimes.

"Are they serious?" Norah asks rhetorically, as she incinerates the small miniscule machines.

Kai ponders for a moment as Milla and Norah destroys the machines, _This isn't right… _

_Usually when something is suddenly easy that means something big is coming up._

_I shouldn't let my guard down_. Kai notices Vix among the crowd with the same worried look on his face, _You're another one I want to keep an eye on, though it seems we both share the same worries._

After all of the machines were taken down, a dead silence looms across the entire stadium, the empress sits down confused, "So, did they win?" Yasmine asks.

"I… I'm not sure…" Kongzhi responds, he himself seems confused about the sudden difficulty drop of the eleventh round.

The large red hardwood door begins to opens behind Milla, Kai and Norah; the youths prepares themselves for whatever is about come out of those doors.

As the door fully opens Milla, Kai and Norah sees a cloaked figure with light purple eyes. The cloaked figure begins to slither himself up the stone tiled platform.

"So, you've made it to the final round?" The person says in sinister voice, "You have no idea how long I've waited for this."

"So you're the one who reprogrammed those machines and mutants?" Kai asks.

"heh, reprogram? No, I _restored _those walking pieces of scrap metal."

"Restored?!"

The cloaked figure begins to makes a maniacal laugh, familiar to Milla, leaving an eerie dread across the complex.

"Kongzhi, who is this man, what does he mean by 'restored'?" Yasmine asks.

"Um, I don't know. Whoever this person is, he's certainly not associated with us." Kongzhi hesitantly responds, _What is this fool doing?! He'll ruin me!_

Milla begins to breathe as she begins to realize who she is talking to, "How? How are you alive?!" the hound demands.

Kai and Norah both looks at Milla, "Do you know this guy, Milla?" Norah asks.

The cloaked figure responds "It's actually a funny story, it's a shame that you'll _die_ before you even get the chance to hear it!" he responds to Norah's question before focusing his attention on Milla "After I'm done with you and your new friends, I'll be sure to give that 'squid-head' a nice visit, _shyahahahaha_"

Immediately the person takes off his cloak revealing a viper with armor and robotic arms, he was equipped with dual pistols and had a sort of head armor with antennas.

Everyone is surprised and horrified by the serpent's reveal.

"Who are you?!" Norah demands.

Milla makes a large sigh, "His name is Serpentine, he used to be Brevon's highest ranking general. Me and my friends defeated him, though we thought he was dead."

"_Used_ to be?! I _am _his highest ranking general!" Serpentine retorts.

"Yeah, your so called leader isn't exactly here, if you are his most valuable general how come he left you stranded in this planet?" Kai mocks.

"You think I don't know that?! I know he'll be back, matters well just take out his biggest threats till he returns."

"Why are you even still following him? He's not controlling you anymore!" Milla cries.

"W-What are you talking about? Enough, you _die now_! I saved a little treat specifically for _you_!"

Appearing from the main gate was a large mech which took the form of a four legged beast, "Introducing the Panther Mech 2.0!"


	5. An Old Enemy

**-5-**

Serpentine mounts on top of the panther mech and makes his usual maniacal laugh, "I'm going to enjoy annihilating you!" Serpentine arrogantly challenges.

Milla, Kai and Norah immediately prepares themselves for the fight, "Bring it on!" Norah taunts with her fist engulfed in flames.

"I have to admit that's an impressive robot you got there, too bad it's about to be scrap metal." Kai says in his usual monotonous voice as he loads his sniper rifle.

"I've beaten your machine once, we can do it again!" Milla declares with her katana drawn, imbued in jade psychic energy.

"_Shyahahaha_, you'll soon find out that I've learned from my mistakes." Serpentine retorts, focusing more on the hound than the husky and panda.

Immediately without hesitation Serpentine fires the mech's energy bullets, aiming directly at the group; the youths quickly dodges the barrage of bullets, the robopanther then charges directly towards the hound.

Kai aims his rifle directly at Serpentine who in response stops charging at Milla and turns his attention towards the other canine firing his duel pistols at the assaulting husky, interrupting and injuring Kai.

Norah takes advantage of the hound's and husky's distractions and attacks the side of the mech with a powerful kick pushing the machine sideways, however the panther mech's robotic claws prevents it from falling sideways as it skids across the stone floor. Milla follows with several strikes with her katana leaving several gashes throughout the metallic panther's limbs, however Serpentine remains calm.

"Why are you so calm?!" Milla cries.

"Because of _this_!" Serpentine responds as the deep gashes Milla left across the machine's limbs began to regenerate, this catches the opposing group by surprise with the viper responding with a large smirk on his face which felt very out of character for the distraught hound.

"What kind of metal is that?!" Kai exasperatedly asks.

"This metal alloy is very special, you can say that dog is familiar with the material that was used to make it." Serpentine responds.

"A material Milla would recognize…", Kai quickly realizes what the viper meant, _How did he get that material?_

_I thought only Milla can utilize it…_

Kai snaps out of his thoughts the moment he sees the robopanther falling straight on top of him, he quickly dodges but the shock waves drags him across the stone floor. Serpentine activates the mechs rocket launcher and aims directly at the temporarily immobile husky, Milla swiftly runs in front of the husky in his defense and destroys the individual rockets with several psychic blasts.

The panther mech dashes past the smoke left from the exploding rockets, instead of attempting to run over the canines the mech jumps over them with the propulsors under the panthers mechanical paws. As it lands behind the two canines, Serpentine immediately fires another barrage of rockets, the raging explosions pushes both canines back.

Norah surprise attacks the panther mech with drop kicking against it's back catching the viper by surprise, the force of the attack cracks the stone floor at the mech's paws as well as severely damaging the machine. The panther mech's regeneration is noticeably slower this time, the panda girl attempts to attack the panther again with several fireballs however the mech evades it's way past the fireballs as it heals; Serpentine uses the panther's tail to whips Norah out of the way, crashing her against one of pillars at the corner of the stone platform, knocking her unconscious.

Serpentine redirects his focus back at Milla and Kai firing several energy bullets in the air with his duel pistols. The purple bullets rains on top of both canines, who attempts to avoid the raging bullets, however some of the bullets hits them. The viper fires another barrage of bullets towards the two youths, one of those bullets hits the hound at the side of her stomach. The bullet severely burns the hound leaving her immobile, Milla makes a short whimper.

Norah regains consciousness and quickly runs over to the injured hound, "You're alright?" the panda girl asks.

"I'm… fine." Milla says clenching her teeth as she tries to stand up and resist the pain.

"Hey wanna see a neat trick?" Norah asks as she helps Milla up.

"Not the best time." Milla responds.

"Well I'm gonna do it anyways, trust me you'll thank me later. Also don't panic because I know the moment you'll see what I'm about to do you'll freak out."

"Um, Norah…" Milla notices a blue flame manifesting from the panda's hand, "What are you doing?!"

Norah immediately puts her fiery hand on the hound's wound, Milla winces but she doesn't feel any pain. The hound felt relief as the panda girl removes her hand from the side of the hound's stomach, the wound has fully healed!

"Told you!" Norah notes was a grin on her face.

"Um…" Milla remains dumbfounded, she wanted to ask Norah how she healed the wound, however she focuses her attention back on Serpentine.

"A little help here!" Kai demands as he fires his rifle at the mechanical panther, barely dodging the combined attacks of the robopanther and Serpentine himself.

Milla aims at the panther mech and fires a super shield burst at the robopanther, Serpentine notices the attack and activate an energy shield to protect the mech, this shocks the hound.

"Nice try!" Serpentine retorts, "Like I said I've learn from my mistakes, though I should end this, _now_!"

The robopanther transforms into a snake-like machine which stood up against a rapid spinning blade, this form was familiar to Milla, but instead of firing several rockets like what the hound expected, instead it fires several large lasers from it's arms as it skids it's way across the arena.

The youths avoid the barrage of lasers zooming across them and missing only by a few centimeters, as the lasers make contact with the floor, the stone platform becomes covered with ice.

Milla, Kai and Norah slips and slides on top of the ice as the panther mech fluidly moves through the ice firing several energy bullets at the youths. The ice made it harder for the group to maneuver themselves as Serpentine continuously flank and counter them.

The panda girl begins to lose her temper as her entire body becomes engulfed in fire melting the ice and mercilessly fires several fireballs at the machine, however to no avail as the mech's energy shield protects it.

The robopanther returns to it's original form and charges at Norah soon after her fury atrophies, Milla pushes the panda girl out of the way dragging both girls against the floor. Serpentine's mech shoots several rockets at the youths, Milla makes a large energy shield surrounding the party.

"You think you can hide from me?!" Serpentine yells as he continues to fire a barrage of rockets in an attempt to break through the hound's shield.

"We need to work together!" Milla cries, trying to maintain the large energy shield.

"He's tougher than we thought, we underestimated him and I'm sure he quickly studied mine's and Norah's combat methods during the previous rounds. I'll give him credit, I can see why he was Brevon's highest ranking general." Kai admits.

"He must have some kind of weakness!" Norah agues.

"What about his anger?" Milla suggests.

"He does seem to have serious anger issues but how does that help us, he seems fairly calm and confident mounted on that mech."

"I don't know, I'm just trying to keep us alive."

"Oh, what about his shield?" Norah snaps her finger.

"What about it?"

"Well if you can't hold on to your shield for long, maybe his shield have the same limitations"

"What kind of logic is that?!"

"A-actually, she may be on to something." Kai interrupts just as Milla's shield gives out, a rocket reaches the group, the explosion knocks all three youths back, the blast leaves a ringing sound in the group's ears.

"The metal alloy he used to make that panther mech is made from the same material from Milla's anklets, gloves and katana." Kai explains, slowly getting up from the fierce explosion.

"W-wait what?!" Milla gasps.

"Quick question, does that material _only _control you abilities?"

"I wouldn't know, I never remember a time that I didn't have my anklets and bracelets, other than when I got my gloves which have the same effect as my bracelets."

"Well maybe some of his mech's abilities have the same limitations as yours, like what Norah said."

"If it does, then I guess he can't maintain his shield very long also he'd have to stand still to maintain such a large shield."

"The mech's regeneration also seem to have a delay." Norah adds.

Milla hears the sound of energy bullets coming from the looming smoke which covered the ravaged fighting area like a thick grey dust cloud, the bullets make their way towards the youths. The group avoids the bullets as the smoke starts to clear, Milla and Kai were able to hear the bullets coming while they warn Norah of the incoming attacks.

The smoke finally clears and the panther mech immediately charges at the group, however Milla and co evades and the panther mech tackles one of the pillars causing it to crack.

The party furiously attacks the robopanther with combination of bullets, fireballs, and psychic blasts, however the mech's energy shield absorbs the attacks.

"What do you hope to achieve from pointlessly attacking." Serpentine boasts, "Come on! Give me all you got!"

Kai and Norah continues to constantly attack Serpentine as Milla sneaks behind the mech and creates a cube of energy with both her hands, she takes aim and performs another super shield burst. The viper suddenly notices the hound's assault however it was too late, the hound successfully lands the attack and the robopanther is pushed against the same pillar it cracked earlier.

Serpentine begins to lose his patience as he begins to fire rockets randomly across the arena in an attempt to finish the party off. The constant shock waves causes the ground to rumble which inadvertently causes the pillar to fall on top of the panther mech, this catches Serpentine off guard as he activate the energy shield to protect him.

The group survives the swarm of rockets and simultaneously attacks the mech with a combination of several range attacks ranging from physical bullets to energy and fiery blasts, the force finally breaks the shield.

Serpentine quickly attempts to make a new shield but sees the devastating message on the screen:

SHIELD ENERGY DEPLETED

"W-what?! NO!" Serpentine yells in an extremely angry voice with his eye twitching from disbelief, "It doesn't matter! I can still _kill_ you without the energy shield!", the viper barks with another round of projectiles coming his way, the collision causes a large explosion.

Thirty seconds have passed and the smoke began to clear and a damaged robopanther emerges with an enraged Serpentine still mounted on top of the mech. The scorched and scratched metal begins to regenerate like before, Kai and Norah quickly responds by aiming at the regenerating mech.

"Aim at the head!" Milla informs.

"Shut up!" Serpentine demands aiming his dual pistols at the hound while his mech fire a combination of bullets and rockets. Norah counter the attacks with several fireballs, Kai takes aim directly at the head of the panther, he fires.

The piece of metal at the face of the mech falls off revealing a sort of green energy source, "Who's in trouble now?" Norah mocks.

Desperate, the viper fires an extremely powerful energy laser off of the green energy source, "**DIE!**" Serpentine yells with a commanding voice.

Milla swiftly appears in front of her allies and blocks the laser with an energy shield of her own, "Please… tell me… you have… plan." Milla struggles to speak as she tries to defend against the massive laser.

Serpentine draws his dual pistols and fires them, keeping Norah and Kai behind Milla, "We can't get out of here." Norah cries.

"We're trapped." Kai specifies.

"_Shyahahahahaha _That's right, struggle girl! I want to see you suffer when I _end _you, when your new friends and all these people watch their so-called heroine _die_, I will be the one remembered to have fell a hero. Once you're dead I'll _kill _these new friends of yours, and then I'll _eliminate _that annoying cat and foolish dragon girl! Perhaps I should spare you though, and make you watch your friends _perish_, either way I'll have my revenge! _Hehehe_" Serpentine informs.

Those words echoes into Milla's thoughts, _No… I won't die… I won't let him hurt my friends… I won't let him hurt Norah, Kai, Carol… or Lilac… I WON'T LET HIM!_

Without even thinking, Milla absorbs the energy from the laser, the hound struggles to maintain the large amount of energy flowing throughout her body. The hound aims directly at the robopanther, Serpentine is left at shock from witnessing what Milla have done; Milla fires a massive psychic blast directly at Serpentine, unleashing an incredible amount of energy and power.

The robopanther is annihilated, nothing remains but a field of scrap metal and a flabbergasted viper who escaped in time before the mech was destroyed.

Milla breaths heavily from the large amount of energy that was flowing throughout her body, grabbing on to her chest and barely able to stand up; the hound remains terrified of what she just accomplished, _I went too far, but I didn't have a choice… I don't ever want to use that power again… _

Norah and Kai came to Milla's aid as Serpentine stood across from them, "This isn't over." the viper says with a raspy voice before retreating.

"Milla you're okay?" Norah asks.

"I'm… fine." Milla responds, still exhausted from the previous attack.

"How did you do that?!"

"I don't want to talk about it, just… help me up, please."

As Milla finally gets up she sees the crowd of people morbidly silent which made the youths worried, _Well, this doesn't seem good… _Kai thought to himself.

It wasn't after a couple of seconds that the crowd and the empress cheers gleefully. Kongzhi remains silent and motionless after Serpentine's defeat, _How… how did years of hard work, just collapse… because of a child… I have no choice, it's time to initiate the "last resort"._

Yasmine stands up, everyone including the shocked rodent next to her became silent, "I would like to apologize for my guards behavior yesterday and the inconvenience I caused you today. I now know, Milla Basset, that you truly are the heroine that helped save our world, also thank you Kai and Norah. I will leave Kongzhi, my advisor, in charge of investigating Serpentine's sudden appearance and how he entered the city; with that said, I would be honored if you three would visit the palace as my guests!" she proclaims.

The crowd cheers and encourages the youths to accept the empress' generous offer. Milla, Kai and Norah nods, "We will be honored ourselves to be your humble guests." Norah announces for the group, the crowd cheers in response and Yasmine gestures with a smile.

Kongzhi makes a small bow and follows the empress back to the royal palace; although he seemed shocked at first his face quickly changes into a dark grin; the rodent's sudden expression leaves Vix, who was among the spectators, suspicious.

As the crowd began to leave the arena Vix began to look for Norah, meanwhile the panda girl and the others was exiting the arena with their clothes and faces covered in dirt, dust, soot and ash; Milla and Kai notices Jing and Wei waiting for them, Norah follows behind them.

"Congratulations, not only did you pass the gauntlet but you also impressed the empress." Wei says.

"Thank you… though… " Milla interrupts herself, she didn't want to make the others worry.

"Though… " Jing responds, waiting for the distraught hound to continue.

"Nothing."

"Well I hope you realize what an honor it is to be guests at the royal palace. Though I guess that's nothing special for someone like you Milla, am I right?"

The hound makes a small giggle in response.

Vix sees the youths with two adults, a panda and a hare; the rabbit interferes "Excuse me, but may I speak with Norah in private."

"Vix!" Milla says with a smile on her face, the rabbit gestures with a mellow smile.

"Nice to meet you again, Milla Basset."

"Pardon, but who are you?" Wei demands.

"Forgive me, my name is Vix Cole, I'm a friend and I've been traveling with this panda girl for three years."

"Well, greetings Vix Cole."

Vix and Norah goes somewhere private, "Um… I'm sorry Vix, I should've listened to you." Norah admits, gesturing in apologizing fashion.

"All well that ends well. Though I should warn you to be cautious when entering the palace." Vix informs.

Norah expression becomes serious, "What do you mean?"

"I mean something is wrong, and I think Kai would agree."

"Kai? I honestly don't think both of you would agree on anything."

"I will admit that we don't seem to agree on certain topics, however we both know when something isn't right."

"What, you mean like political corruption?"

Vix gestures with a nod.

"I'll bring it up with them, so what will you be doing while I'm in the palace, you know I could bring you as a guest."

"I think it's best I don't go into the palace with you, trust me on this."

"You know I would trust you with anything."

Norah leaves Vix with his endeavours and returns to Milla and Kai.

"So what was that about?" Kai asks

"I'll tell you when we're at the palace." Norah responds.

"Fine, so should we be going?"

"Yeah, but we should grab our stuff from our hotel rooms… and maybe take a shower before we go to the royal palace." Milla suggests.

The youths agrees and prepares before heading over to the royal palace.


	6. Hidden Corruption

**-6-**

It was a calm sunny day at Dragon Valley.

A few years have past and Milla was now seven years old, she wore a solid black leotard and a small green jacket that Norah gifted her about a year ago.

For as long as she can remember the hound have always had her asymmetrically colored anklets and bracelets, as she've gotten older she learned to control her powerful senses and adapted to her surroundings. The hound have also began to exhibit strange abilities.

"Milla!" The hound hears a faint call from a distance, the hound followed the voice to investigate. Milla finds a panda girl looking for her, wearing a violet T-shirt with a jacket of a darker hue, the panda had violate shorts and black shoes.

"Hi Norah." Milla responded as she fell off a tree and landing in front of the panda girl, who gestures with a smile.

"So what you wanna do, my mother is currently on some 'important business' at Shang Mu so I'm free to hang out for a couple of hours." Norah explained.

Milla ponders on what they could play, "Hide and Seek!" the hound cheerfully suggested.

"Alright, but you always win."

Milla made a guilty grin, "I'll seek!" she said ignoring the protesting panda.

Norah began to hide as the hound starts to count to thirty "... three… four… five… " Milla makes a discreet grin on her face as she whiffed Norah's scent.

The panda girl decides to climb a tree and hide inside the canopy of leaves.

"... fifteen… sixteen… seventeen… "

Norah adjusted herself so she could be comfortable.

"... twenty-four… twenty-five… twenty-six"

As Norah was readjusting herself, she noticed smoke manifesting from one of the branches she was holding on to, she immediately removed her hand from said branch.

"... thirty! Ready or not, here I come!" Milla announced, she began to follow the panda girl's scent. The scent led her to a large mangrove tree, the hound began to climb the tree assuming that Norah was at the top.

Norah relaxes on top of the mangrove, "Found you!" the ecstatic hound said poping her head into the canopy of leaves, startling the relaxed panda.

The panda fell off the tree and lands on her bottom, "Ow!" she complained, "How did you find me that fast?! That's faster than usual!"

"Sorry, I'm surprised I found you so easily myself… it's almost as though I can sense you… " Milla said with a serious face.

"M-Milla? You're alright, what do you mean by 'sense'. Hey come on, tell me!" Norah demands

The hound reluctantly raises her hand out and as she did her hand began to make a jade glow, out of curiosity the panda girl attempts to touch her hand. Milla warns Norah not to touch her hand, "No! Don't touch it!"

Norah looked dumbfounded by what she just saw, "How did you do that?!"

"I don't know." Milla responds as the jade glow on her hand began to flicker, implying the hound's inability to maintain the glow, "I just… learned how to."

"It's still kinda awesome. Oh, maybe you're a magician!"

"What's a magician?"

"It's like a person who can perform magic."

"What's magic?"

"It's like… um… it's like this… I don't know."

"Why not?"

For the first time Norah was unable to explain something to the naive hound, she felt just as naive and she disliked it. Unable to answer the curious hound's question she finally responds out of frustration "I just don't! I'll ask my mother!"

"Those you're mommy know what 'magic' is?"

"I don't know, she usually goes to Shang Mu and Shang Tu on official business, which usually involves talking to a bunch of old people. When we are home at Shuigang, she always mentions how she's like some kind of important 'mystical figure'."

"So she's a magician?"

"I'm not sure, maybe I'll ask my mom that too. You could just come with me to Shuigang by sneaking into our air ship, but my mother can **not** know!"

Milla nods cheerfully in response.

After about two or three hours of playing games and hanging out, Norah begins to head back to the city, "Sorry Milla, I got to go. It's a long walk back to Shang Mu." Norah calls as she departs

"Alright, nice to see you again!" Milla calls back.

* * *

"Hello, avalice to Milla?" Norah asks, waving her hands in front of Milla's face as they finally reach the palace entrance.

"She did the same thing with me a few days ago." Kai explains.

Milla snaps out of her thoughts, "huh… oh, sorry… so we're here?"

"Yup, so where are we going in this massive palace?" Norah asks.

Milla and Kai shrug their shoulders in response.

As the palace's entrance door opens, revealing the familiar skarlet hallways with white marble floors, the youths are greeted with three servants.

"Welcome back to the Royal Palace, we've been waiting for you Milla, Kai and Norah." one of the servants explains, "Allow us to take you to the dining hall."

The three servants guides the group through the long hallways to the dining hall. The dining hall was a large room consisting of the same skarlet walls with four pillars of a similar hue decorated in golden swirls and white and black marble floors. The longer sides of the room had three window, several types of plants with fountains acting as aqueducts for the plant life, similar to the throne room. The shorter sides consisted of one red hardwood door, one side for guests to enter through and the side across from the youths for the empress or council members to enter through. At the center of the dining room was a long dining table with a total of 32 chairs including the empress' chair at the end of the table, the table was decorated with an assortment of plates and utensils.

"Welcome!" The empress says with a warm smile.

"Thank you for inviting us your highness." Milla expresses, trying to show respect to the young empress.

The empress quickly observes her surroundings as Milla, Kai and Norah sit on their respective chairs, "Hey you can just call me Yasmine, I know you're suppose to refer to me as empress but what the servants and/or council members don't know won't hurt them." she whispers.

The group makes a confused looks on their faces, which confuses Yasmine just the same.

"What happen, is there something in my teeth?" Yasmine retorts.

"H-how are you the empress exactly?" Kai asks with a monotonous voice.

"Well, last year my father mysteriously died. As the princess, I inherited the throne and became the empress of the Qin Empire. Why do you ask?"

"You don't exactly strike me as an empress, I mean you seem underqualified."

"... Underqualified?"

"Have you even stepped out of Zhōngyāng before?" Norah asks.

"Not really, honestly I haven't really 'communicated' with the commoners in years. I guess that's what I have Kongzhi for."

"You can't honestly believe _everything _your advisor say."

"I see no reason not to trust him, he's my advisor after all."

"If it was left up to your advisor, we would've been rotting in prison, or worse."

Milla gives the husky and panda a scalding expression as she interrupts "I'm sorry if my friends are being mean."

"It's fine… I guess they have a point." Yasmine insures.

"So what are your opinions on Shang Mu, Shang Tu, and Shuigang?"

"Um, I don't know. I've always been told that people from the origin kingdoms were corrupt and selfish."

"You believe that?"

"How can I, don't you come from the origin kingdoms?" Yasmine reasons "There's always people like that, it's only natural. If there's more people like you, then I don't see why we can't try to befriend the origin kingdoms, even Shuigang."

"That's good to hear, you know you don't have to listen to that rat all the time!"

"She's right, he maybe an advisor but _you _are the empress, the leader of an empire." Kai explains.

"You shouldn't be afraid to make your own decisions!" Norah follows.

All Yasmine could do is make a faint smile, "Thank you, so let's eat!" she says as a couple of servants and robots arrives at the dining hall with several trays, consisting of a large assortment of different foods and treats, "I hope you guys enjoy yourselves!"

As the youths eat their dinner, the empress begins to think to herself, _I haven't heard someone tell me to be myself, since… since I was a young girl, I wonder what happened to the boy who told me that…_

"Um, excuse me Milla." Yasmine addresses.

"Yeah." Milla responds softly after swallowing her food.

"Can I ask you a question, about the origin kingdoms."

"Yeah?" Milla expresses with a small smile.

"Is it true what they said about Shuigang?"

The hound's expression turned serious, "Yeah, but it's complicated."

"Oh, I see. I'm sure there was a good reason why Prince Dail acted the way he did, but I'm… also glad you and your friends stopped him anyways."

"All I can really say, is that he wasn't himself; I do know he lost someone important to him two years ago."

"You mean his father? Yeah, I guess we're not too dissimilar, I just want to know how the other leaders are like… that's all."

"I think you'll like them, Dail of Shuigang is interesting; Magister of Shang Tu is wise; Zao of Shang Mu… is… eh, eccentric?"

"Eccentric?" Yasmine responds in a confused tone.

"Let's leave it at that." Milla explains with a large grin.

Yasmine makes a short giggle, "Alright, I'll take your word for it, oh and can I ask one more question, this one is personal."

The hound remained attentive.

"Have you ever felt like you've let somebody down?"

"Yes… twice actually."

"Thank you, I won't ask what specifically. I'm sure you don't want to talk about it, but what advice would you give me?"

"I don't know really… I guess you should just either try again or get stronger."

"Thank you, sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable."

"It's alright, I'm going to be honest I'm not the wisest or the smartest, but I'm always willing to help a friend." Milla makes a large smile.

Yasmine makes a warm smile in response, _Friend?! She sees me as a… friend!_

Soon after everyone was finished with their dinner, the empress instructs the youths to get settled in their rooms, "I hope you guys have a great evening, you're free to roam the halls and ask for anything you may need."

The group bows in respect, and starts heading to their rooms. Milla enters her room, which had emerald colored walls with granite floors; like the majority of the rooms in the palace, the bedroom had at least one wall consisting of plant life. The queen sized bed was made with red hardwood and had green covers, there was two night tables flanking the bed with a blue candle for each, two dressers also flanked the television across from the large bed. There was also a bathroom and balcony for her room.

Milla tosses her backpack to the side as she falls down on top of the mattress, she begins to breathe in an attempt to relax herself. The hound ponders to herself as she stares into the ceiling as the orange light of the sunset covers the bedroom, _This is usually around the time when Lilac would ask me if things have been pretty crazy around here, I'm sure I would say yes. It been more than crazy, it feels like as though everything it spiralling out of control, I never thought I would team up with a Red Scarf… _

… _or see Norah or Serpentine again… _

Milla hears someone knocking on the door and answers.

The hound opens the door and sees Kai and Norah on the other side, "We need to talk." Norah explains.

"What happened?!" Milla responds.

"I said the same thing… " Kai retorts.

"I know you're suspicious about what's going on around here as much as I am." The panda girl retorts back.

"... And I know that you're not smart enough to notice something as discrete as political corruption by yourself." the husky counters.

"You know, I do have some experience with diplomacy."

"Is that so, you were a rich girl or something?"

"That's none of your business, so back off!"

"Hey, both of you relax!" Milla interrupts, "What do you guys mean by 'political corruption'?"

"If you're wondering what Vix told me back at the arena, he was telling me about his suspicious about the current situation with Qin. I thought about it, and he have a point." Norah reveals.

"You trust him?" Kai asks

"You don't?"

"Let's say I know of people like him."

"Well, I trust him. We've been through a lot together, even though it only have been a few years, that doesn't matter."

"I also had this uneasy feeling, that something wasn't right. The empress seems distraught." Milla includes.

"Either way, it does seem weird." Kai admits, "Isn't it weird how only a year ago the emperor died, without anyone knowing how he died. Also Yasmine is obviously not even experienced enough to rule a city, let alone an entire empire."

"Where are you getting at?" Norah challenges.

"Don't you think it's a bit convenient, who do we know that would benefit from all of this?"

"I guess Kongzhi, but I don't understand why would he be responsible for the emperor's death, doesn't seem like a politically smart move."

"He could've hired someone."

Milla just had a thought, "Wait, I think I remember something about Serpentine."

"What does Serpentine have to do with anything?" Kai asks

"Before he became Brevon's general; I remember overhearing Torque, the alien who helped Lilac and Carol, talking about how Serpentine was a mercenary. You don't think that Kongzhi… "

"That he tried to have us killed?"

"I doubt that, he seemed fairly surprised when Serpentine appeared." Norah adds.

"Maybe he didn't expect Serpentine to physically appear at all, maybe he planned for the machines to take us out."

"So why did Serpentine appear in the first place, he could've stayed hidden." Milla reasons.

"He did have a vendetta against you, Kongzhi likely hired Serpentine because of his experience against you, but probably went rogue because of that very vendetta."

"That's good and all, but even if that rat is responsible for all of this we have no proof." Norah says.

"We should just tell the empress about this!" Milla suggests.

The party ponders on what course of action to take, they agree to discuss this with the empress, however just when the three youths was going to exit the room, they notice the door was locked.

"It won't budge!" Norah complains, "Hey! What's the big deal!" the panda girl yells, repeatedly banging against the door.

"I'm sorry, but we are in direct orders to keep you in this room, until further notice." A man responds behind the door.

"Direct orders, from whom?!" Kai argues.

"Yeah, you can't keep us here!" Milla adds, "The empress said we can roam the halls, you wouldn't disobey your own empress, would you?"

"Of course not, but in this case it's for the greater good." the agent explains.

"I'll show you greater good!" Norah threatens, with her limbs engulfed in fire preparing to knock down the door.

"Norah, stop!" Kai whispers "We'll find another way out, let's think about this. If we attack any of the Qin agents that will only give Kongzhi another reason to imprison us."

Norah submits, and agrees to listen to Kai's plan.

* * *

It was now eleven o'clock at night, a few hours have passed.

Kongzhi enters the empress' room, "I'm sorry for the intrusion your highness, but I have a recent development to share with you."

Yasmine exits her bathroom, wearing a kimono. "Alright, what… is… it… ", Yasmine changes her tone as she notices something wrong with her advisor, his expression seemed unstable.

"I'm here to report an assassination attempt."

Yasmine starts to step back as she sees the rodent slowly creeping up to her with something behind his back, "Oh, um… W-Who was the a-assailant… "

"Oh, I'm sure we both know the answer to that."

"Kongzhi, please don't do anything you'll regret. Y-you w-wouldn't… y-you can't! I'll scream!" Yasmine began to panic as though her life was flashing before her eyes, "P-please… Stop! Stay back!"

"No one is here to hear you. To think that I actually have to do this myself; it's such a shame actually, you could've made such a useful puppet; I'll make this quick and painless."

The rodent have gotten as close as a few inches away from the empress, Yasmine makes a frightened expression as she sees the twisted smile of the person she once believed to have been her trusty advisor, "Please, you don't have to do this!" she cries. Yasmine knew exactly what was behind Kongzhi's back, purely out of instinct she grabs something from her night table and attempts to assault the rodent, however he was too fast

Immediately Kongzhi grabs on to Yasmine's arm with his available hand as he reveals the knife in his other hand and puts the blade against her neck, "I've had enough nonsense, to think that the emperor wanted to entrust the empire with an ignorant, spoiled, and foolish girl like you! Once I'm done with this I'll deal with those pestering children."

Tears went down the red panda's eyes as she closes her eyes waiting for the inevitable..

Suddenly the empress hears a series of strange sounds, she slowly opens her eyes and sees Kongzhi in the other side of the room and right in front of her was a black robed figure holding a strange staff, the yellow crystal at the top of the staff made a faint glint.

"W-who are you?" Yasmine asks, as she wipes her tears off.

The person turns his head and reveals a ginger haired, white furred rabbit with heterochromic eyes. The rabbit greets the terrified empress with a calm smile, the person responds "I'm a friend your highness, you can call me Vix Cole."


	7. The Last Resort

**-7-**

_Edited by Etherdrone_

It took the corrupt advisor a moment for him to register the situation. His mind, not entirely sure on what to feel, brought him back to his senses as Vix Cole, unyielding, stood firmly between him and the empress, whose voice was locked inside her own throat, aghast.

"I'm sorry for being tardy, my lady," Vix softly explains, his eyes not taken away from the denied assassin. "I would have come sooner, but I had to remain a distance away from the palace until I could intervene, ere my efforts would be discovered."

Yasmine only responded with a confused glare, her tears of fear still slowly tumbling down to the floor she stood on.

"Empress? Are you alright?"

"I! ...I'm fine! Um… " Yasmine gasps, just before Kongzhi stood up and interrupts her, furious.

"What is the meaning of this?! Who do you think you are?!"

"Me? I am a simple mercenary that was passing by, when a little bird told me a lady was in distress," Vix coyly says, resting most of his weight on the staff he was carrying. "And as we all know, little birds are always right. How could I ignore such a thing?"

"...You. You think you're being charming with this?" Kongzhi snarls, the knife he still held in his hand being gripped with so much strength that he felt his fingers getting numb. "You think this is a game?"

"Oh no, I'm still up to paying witness to a game. I figured you were the expert on that, but apparently, I was wrong." Vix says. The advisor fumed with anger.

"...It doesn't matter. I think I should appreciate your presence here," The rodent boasts, holding the knife in an obviously aggressive manner. "All I have to do now is place the blame on you when the Empress dies!" He immediately took a lunge at the rabbit, making Yasmine yelp in surprise. Vix calmly pulls himself back and let the knife pass right through him, whiffing the strike completely. As the rodent lost his footing due to the clumsy assault, Vix swept the staff by his feet which trips the advisor, having Kongzhi fall face-first on the cold, hard floor. Without losing a beat, Vix points the staff at the rodent, with the sharp pieces of metal sticking out of top of the weapon only a few inches away from Kongzhi's face, who lied on the floor, helpless. "Y-you wouldn't dare!" he lashes, his eyes betraying the tone of his voice.

"…You're right. I wouldn't," Vix claims, his tone not flinching in the slightest. "Mortally wounding someone, unless I need to isn't part of my life."

The rodent didn't seem to care about the jagged end of the shaft just a few inches away from his face. "You claim that so easily? You're weak-minded, boy!"

"So what? Do you think that killing people is the right way to feel good about yourself?" Vix chuckles back at the advisor, who growls back in silence. "Tell me, what does that prove? That you've killed someone? That's not real strength."

Kongzhi snaps his teeth with anger as he tried to pull himself away from the tip of Vix's staff, to no avail. "Tell me! Who are you, really? A mercenary that thinks the way you do? Ludicrous!"

"You misjudge me," Vix interrupts, still keeping the weapon aimed straight at the advisor's neck. "I am, in fact, a mercenary. Admittedly, I don't have the best relationship with my people… you can say our ideas of 'morality' are quite different."

The advisor sneered. "Morality and honor. That's cute, but did you really think I didn't plan this all through?"

"You did? And here I was, actually thinking you were just a complete idiot."

"DON'T MOCK ME, MERCENARY!" Kongzhi shouts, making the empress back away, reluctant. "I have more of this prepared than you could possibly imagine!"

"Indeed? Good thing that I prepared insurance of my own," Vix explains as a troupe of youths finally arrive at the empress' room, all running in different speeds, Milla at the front of them all. "Good evening! Took you long enough to finally get here."

"Vix Cole?!" Kai asks, the rifle he aimed at the room in reflex now aimed at his feet. "What are you doing here?!"

"Nothing extraordinary, just saving the empress for you," Vix explains with a smile, the bravado from the advisor all but gone at this point. "You certainly took your time, however. What were you doing?"

Norah began to whistle in embarrassment.

"Norah?"

"Well, uh. Kai originally wanted to climb out of the palace through the balcony, but Milla mentioned how there's likely to be guards outside?" Norah begins to talk almost in rapid-fire. "S-So she suggested going through the ventilation shaft. However Kai argued how the vents were too small for us, so they started arguing so I was just going to punch them or something, until…"

Vix simply waited for her to talk. The silence was mortifying for the next few seconds.

"Until I needed to pee, so I told the guard behind the door that I needed to use the bathroom!" she admits so loudly that it was almost a shout. "C-Check it out though, the idiots actually let me out! It took me a while to realize what had happened, so I beat the crap out of them and we ran all the way here!"

"I'm surrounded by idiots everywhere," Kongzhi mumbles, finally attracting attention back to him. "It's a good thing I thought about all of this."

"Wait… what?" Vix says as the room immediately got filled with a thick, dark smoke. Kongzhi, making good use of the surprise, escapes from Vix's staff and tackled Yasmine, carrying her away from the safety of the mercenary's presence.

"HEY! Get off of me!" Yasmine demands, sinking her teeth in the rodent's shoulder, blood gushing out from it from the strength she fought back.

"You little brat!" Kongzhi yells in pain as he crashed her head against the wall, knocking her unconscious. As the youths still tries to understand what was happening amidst the confusion, two agents appeared from the shadows, assisting the advisor in carrying the empress away from their presence.

"Take her away!" Kongzhi orders as he follows the agents past the group, darting down the hallway as fast as they could.

"No! They're trying to escape!" Vix warns the three confused youths, "Guys! You go after Kongzhi, I'll catch up soon!"

"What? You're leaving us?!" Kai complains, cursing to himself in silence about the fact they were ambushed.

"Don't worry, trust me!"

"Kai, just… just trust him." Norah nods with insurance, thought feeling slightly skeptical herself about the rabbit's motives.

The three then immediately turned around and ran down the hall, leaving Vix behind them as they did. It didn't take long before they were interrupted by three cloaked Qin agents accompanied by a few royal guards, all of which barred their way and equipped with naginatas, spears and rifles.

"Halt! We will use deadly force if necessary!" The head agent demands, equipped with a pair of neko tes.

Almost as if by complete, silent understanding, none of the youths reply. The agents all pointed their weapons at them again, their speed not decreasing in the slightest. "I will not warn you again! STO—"

The warning fell on deaf ears as the youths seemed to increase their speed instead. With a final yell of surprise, the guards all gasped as the three barreled through the barricade, trampling over the guards as they tore their weapons and rifles in half with the sheer gargantuan effort of their combined advance.

"…_Strike_." Kai chuckled to himself as the barricade simply collapsed to the ground, some of its members more hurt by their barreling advance than others.

"What's this? You actually have a sense of humor?! I'm impressed." Norah laughs, making Kai roll his eyes in response.

"Newsflash, I guess? Come on, we should hurry; there's no way they could've gotten far with the empress!."

The youths immediately continue their pursuit. As the group reaches the hallway leading directly to the entrance door, they witness Kongzhi and his agents exiting the palace. The rodent, noticing the youths running towards them from the other side of the hallway, shouts at his own guards. "Hand me the empress, you stall those children!"

The two agents each responds with a quick nod and immediately turn themselves around to assault the group as another pair of agents descends from the hallway ceiling, flanking the three.

"…We're surrounded," Norah points out, the adrenaline rushing through their blood as the obviously more well-trained agents slowly approached them in unison.

The four agents then took to action, attacking the group in unison. Milla, by sheer will of reflex, made two shields for both hands and followed with two simultaneous shield bursts to her sides. Her attack was successful in blasting two guards away as the husky and panda both turn to face a different agent.

Kai, in a surprising use of sleight of hand, loaded a chamber inside of his rifle as the agent took a dive in his direction, trying to use melee as his advantage over the husky. With mild success, the agent pushed the weapon away and swung at Kai, who ducked under the attack and tackled the agent away with his shoulder, who tried his best not to be pushed too far, to still threaten the husky with a counter-attack. Just as he did so, however, Kai grinned in victory, wielding the rifle at the hip and blasting a spray of blue energy against the agent, who immediately got frozen in place, the shotgun-like blast from the gun painted the ground behind its target, creating a clear, vicious zone of ice and artificially-formed snow.

Norah, after parrying the attack from the agent that rushed her, missed the counter-attack as her opponent slipped away, backwards. Clacking her tongue in annoyance, the panda made good use of her window of superiority, doing a quick jump forward and grabbing the agent's left wrist with her right hand, immediately jumping back and stopping, dragging the enemy with her. The agent, opening in eyes in surprise, tried to land a flying knee on Norah, but she saw the attacking coming and, raising a knee of her own, crashed hers against his, winning the exchange and using the opportunity to swing her leg up as hard as she could, crashing her foot against the agent's chin, the flame charge that ripped through the attack blasting the defeated agent several feet into the air before crashing against the cold, hard ground.

Milla, making use of the fact the two other agents were knocked out cold by her surprisingly powerful attack, dashed forward to square off against Kongzhi, who was still carrying the empress with him, whom slowly regained consciousness.

Kongzhi, out of desperation, raises his knife against the red panda's neck, stopping Milla's advance. "Stop this instant! If you get any closer, her blood will be splattered across the pavement!"

She immediately stops. Not knowing what to do, she was joined by Kai and Norah, who also remained still from the threat. They needed to retrieve the empress, but they didn't know how – cornering this man even further would guarantee the empress' death!

"Good," he slyly claims, his eyes absolutely hazed with combined fear and anger. "Drop your weapons and the empress will be spared. I think I might have some use for her after all, so long she cooperates." Kongzhi continues as he kept the knife at Yasmine's neck. She was in tears.

"What is the matter?" he said with anger as he dug the knife's blade even closer to her throat. "Is that not enough for you? If it isn't, then I'll personally pardon you for your crimes. DROP YOUR WEAPONS, NOW!"

Reluctantly, the three complies. As they did so, several agents appeared from the palace and surrounded the group and the advisor.

"…W-What now?" Milla asks, shy. Everywhere she looked at, all she could see were the cold stares of the many agents that now surrounded them.

"I… I don't know." Kai admits. …They were done for.

Then… just then, when all hope was lost, a loud, snapping sound rips through their ears as a yellow blur blasted across the palace entrance, the wind that soon followed was enough to push the youths forward a little. In a flash of an instant, the majority of the agents were crashed to the ground and the empress was miraculously out of Kongzhi's clutches. The knife he had in his hand also vanished completely.

"W-What?!" the rodent gasps in shock as he steps back, his eyes bulging in pure, unfiltered horror.

"What? What just happened?" Norah asks, her eyes being just as filled with confusion as everyone else.

"I told you to trust me," a familiar voice, rings in their ears. As soon as everyone turns to see who it was…

"Vix!" The panda joyfully cries, her smile couldn't possibly get any bigger.

"Was that you?!" Kai asks, receiving a negative response from the rabbit, who simply shook his head.

"Of course not. That was just a friend of yours."

Just as Vix said so, a person appeared before both the group and Kongzhi, holding the empress on his arms. The man was a yellow scaled dragon with brown hair, one broken horn; sharp claws while wearing a general's uniform and with a pair of twin swords strapped around his waist.

"This is the second time I had to save you, Empress Yasmine." The dragon speaks with a smile on his face.

"You… I remember you!" Yasmine acknowledges, making the dragon open a jovial smile at her in response. A very nostalgic one.

"Sorry if I caused you any inconvenience these past few days, Milla Basset." Turning around to face the hound, the dragon apologizes.

"N-No, It's fine! I'm glad you're here!" Milla responds, making the dragon smile in relief.

"You! Who exactly are-?" Kongzhi demands, being interrupted by the sudden turn the dragon gave, his eyes being so sharp that the rodent felt like it would slice him in half.

"My apologies, where are my manners? My name is General Jin Glaust" the dragon introduces himself with a dry, slashing courtesy worthy of an execution. The rodent wince in response.

The advisor stood speechless. The draconic general had defeated all of his agents in mere seconds! _So this… this is the speed and power of a dragon?!_

"Thankfully, Vix Cole informed me about what happened yesterday regarding your arrests. I figured that at least one of the council members was corrupt, but you guys… You all fished the worst of them all," Jin explains, carefully bringing Yasmine back to her own feet. Kai, still wrapping his head around the speed of which the general had blasted through the opposition, raised an eyebrow at the explanation.

"Then why did you send us here?" he asks with genuine curiosity. "If you knew there was corruption…"

"I figured if you were the ones to reveal it, things wouldn't scale into problems beyond our control. I should have told you my real intentions, but at least Yasmine was reasonable about the situation." Jin chuckles once to himself as he carefully turns around to face the rodent, still protecting the Empress by the sheer power of his presence. "As for you, Kongzhi… you're through. This is it for you."

"W-What? You can't do anything! You're a mere general, I'm still the head of the council!" Kongzhi argues, his voice absolutely wavering with fear.

"…Actually, you're not anymore," Yasmine counters, her eyes now completely dry from the tears she shed before, fear being taken over by anger.

"W-What do you mean?!"

"_What do you mean?!_" the empress mocks, imitating the advisor's tone with a barbaric effort of mockery. "Shut up, Kongzhi! …I know someone much more appropriate for the job!"

Just as she finished her sentence, several royal guards ran out of the palace. Looking at the situation at hand, they immediately made mention to arrest the youths, but were instantly barred by the empress. "HEY! You idiots! What do you guys think you're doing?"

"Uh? Y-Your Highness, didn't these children assault you?" one guard says.

"Of course not! Don't you have eyes on your heads? He's the one who tried to kill me! Arrest him!" Yasmine demands, pointing directly at Kongzhi, who became pale at how fiercely his whole world crumbled around him.

"Y-You can't do this! I'm head of the council! I am—"

"And I'm the Empress of Qin, jackass! Kiss my rank right in the butt!" she snarls, making a vulgar gesture with her finger at him, making all the guards around her to look at each other in confusion, of which was promptly snapped out of by the empress herself. "What are you DOING? I gave you an order, arrest him!"

"Y-YES! We're, sorry your highness!"

As the guards overwhelmed and apprehended the rodent, Yasmine stepped forward one more time. "Kongzhi Dong, you are hereby arrested for your crimes against the Qin Empire and by the attempted murder of yours truly," Yasmine announces, having him being taken by the squadron of soldiers. As soon as he wasn't in their sights anymore, the empress first sighs, then chuckles, then opens up a great, relieved laughter from the bottom of her heart. "Hahahahah! Oh, I always wanted to say something like that!" she confirms to Jin and the youths, who all responds with smiles of their own.

It took them all a couple of moments to readjust to the night as Jin slowly approaches Yasmine's side once again, trading looks of acknowledgement to one another.

"So, you're empress now." Jin notes, having her smile softly at him.

"I should say the same to you, Mr. Big Shot General." Yasmine retorts, having the youths all look slightly out of place in this conversation.

"You guys know each other?!" Milla asks with innocence, her small smile coming along for the ride.

"…Yes. This man saved my life more than a decade ago. I… never got his name back then, but it's hard to forget the face of a young dragon boy." Yasmine explains.

"Though we promised each other that we would meet again. It was a rather uncommon way to make friends, I'll admit." Jin adds, making the empress blush, grimace and smile, all at once.

"I did give you a necklace or something, didn't I?"

"Ah, yes. You mean this, right?" Jin asks, removing the necklace from his pocket, a beautifully adorned trinket, extremely expensive-looking, definitely worthy of belonging to an empress, though slightly worn by usage and time. "I used it as a good luck charm, always… After all a blessing from a princess isn't something to ignore, is it?"

Everyone then traded looks of agreement. They had finally won their night, as the cold wind that blew past them all made the empress shake a little. "It's truly getting late, now. There's no point in staying in the open like this," the general says, watchful as always.

"Yes, I agree," Vix says as all of them made their way to the palace, once again. The empress, feeling relief dominate her completely, finally felt fully comfortable around the party of her saviors.

"I guess we can make room for more people. Good thing this place is so big… I never used even half of it, even living in it for twenty-three years!"


	8. Call for Reform

**-8-**

Three days after the events regarding Kongzhi's assassination attempt.

It was early in the morning and Milla was asleep in her bedroom, she was in her usual sleeping attire wearing a beige tank top and black capris with her katana on top of one of the two night tables flanking her bed. Norah slowly creeps into the sleeping dog's room wearing a lavender nightgown and slippers, the panda walks over to Milla's side of bed and attempts to wake up the basset hound, but to no avail.

"Hey, Milla! Wake up!" Norah abruptly yells out of impatience.

The hound slowly wakes up in response. Shortly after she stretches, the canine notices the observing panda. "Oh, hi Norah." Milla yawns.

"Kai wanted me to wake you up because Yasmine asked us to meet her and Jin at the throne room this morning."

"Alright… Just let me get dressed… wait, why couldn't Kai wake me up himself?!"

Norah shrugs her shoulders in response.

As the panda leaves the bedroom, Milla gets off her bed and begins to dress up. As the hound dresses herself she reflects on these past few days, _Everything is going to be fine now._

_These past few days have been fun with Yasmine, for an empress she makes a great friend._

_I'm sure Jin and Yasmine are talking some political stuff… and how their lives been going._

_I guess everything went well in the end._

Milla exits her room and sees Kai leaning against one of the hallway pillars across from the hound's door.

"How long have you been waiting?" Milla asks with a sudden offensive tone.

"Not very long, have anyone mention how much of a deep sleeper you are?" Kai retorts.

The hound only responds with a condescending expression as her face turned red out of embarrassment, she shakes her head trying to ignore the husky's retort, "Can we just see Yasmine now."

The husky nods in agreement.

Yasmine happily sat on her throne with Jin firmly standing next to her as the empress' new advisor, however he maintained his rank as a general.

"I hope you had a good night!" Yasmine says with a smile.

Milla expresses with a short stretch and responds, "It was invigorating!"; Norah nods in agreement.

"So what's going on?" Kai demands.

"Well I have some interesting news. Jin would you care to explain?"

"I'll be honored." Jin responds speaking in an informal manner which ordinarily would be offensive to someone of Yasmine's status, however she didn't mind. The youths remain attentive as the dragon begins to speak, "So as you may already know Yasmine have been contacting several Qin officials regarding the events that transpired during this year's establishment festival. Meanwhile I've been trying to create new diplomatic relations with the other kingdoms, including Shang Mu, Shang Tu, and Shuigang."

"That's excellent!" Milla cheerfully responds.

"We've also informed the other nations of Serpentine's recent whereabouts as well as explaining what Milla did for the Qin Empire, we however maintained Kai's and Norah's anonymity. Because of this recent knowledge, we are asking you if you would be willing to return to Shang Mu to report further details."

"So, another diplomatic mission, because the last one went very well." Kai sarcastically retorts.

"We've made several precautions to assure that nothing will go wrong, rather you wish to be involved is entirely up to you and Norah. Mayor Zao of Shang Mu and King Dail of Shuigang will be waiting at the Shang Mu City Hall."

"Wait you said Dail is at Shang Mu?!" Norah acknowledges in a worried tone.

Jin gestures with a nod, "According to our sources, Dail recently arrived at Shang Mu for diplomatic reasons of his own, he should be aware of your arrival by now."

"O-oh, alright."

"One last thing, the only way to exit the Qin Empire as of this time is through the eastern city of Dōng mén, I want you to inform Jie of everything that happened during the festival."

"Will do!" Milla enthusiastically announces, "What else have you've been doing Yasmine?""

"Not only have I've been contacting several officials, I've also have been helping out with the communities. I think it's time we start treating our loyal citizens with more respect, so in a way I'm kind'a like a reformer" Yasmine chuckles, "Who knows, maybe I'll see you guys again over at the origin kingdoms when everything is fine here. I kind'a want to meet Sash Lilac and Carol Tea, I'm sure you have quite a story to tell them when you come back, huh Milla?""

"Yeah, I think they would enjoy hearing about this."

"Alright, we'll head over to Dōng mén and take the train to Shang Mu." Kai interrupts.

As the three youths exits the throne room, Norah had a distraught face which catches the husky's attention, "What's wrong, you're usually very smug."

"I told you, nothing" The panda lashes harshly, swiftly changing her face in an attempt to hide her agitation.

"Hm, If you say so."

Norah makes her tone softer, "Anyways I think this is where we say goodbye. It was nice meeting you."

"See you later."

"I guess… It was nice seeing you again, Milla."

"It was nice to see you again Norah." Milla responds as the panda quickly ran back to her bedroom.

"We should prepare." Kai adds, the hound gestures with a nod.

* * *

Norah was pondering to herself on top of her bed, _I know I still haven't forgiven her for betraying me… but I've forgotten how much fun I used to have with that naive basset hound… _

_I kinda miss it though… _

_I guess if I had an actual reason to go to Shang Mu with them would to see Dail again… I wonder what happened to his brother… _

_I can't just leave Vix though, we've been through a lot. I even see him as a close friend… no, a brother, not just a partner._

_I don't know… I'm so confused, I hate being this way!_

The panda remained frustrated and conflicted with her thoughts; she hears a familiar voice, "You should go with them."

"Vix, why would you say that?!"

"I'm just suggesting it, I know you have a history with Milla and you two likely don't see eye-to-eye."

"You can say that again."

"However you do not have to make me happy, in fact what would make me happy is if you follow your own instincts. Do what makes you happy, I don't like it when you're conflicted with your thoughts and I know all too well that you don't like it either."

Norah remains silent, thinking over her options. _He's right._

"I know you want to, I know you have some personal business with not only Milla but with the origin kingdoms. I have one last piece of advice: Don't be afraid to show some humility or weakness, you can be too prideful. "

The panda made a faint smile as she hugs the surprised rabbit, "Thank you, Vix" Norah admits.

The sun begins to set as Milla and Kai begins to exit the city through the eastern gate. Before the canines exits the outskirts they hear a faint yell, "Hey! Hey you guys! Wait for me!", when the canines turn around to see who's yelling they see a panda wearing a purple sleeveless and skirt with golden outlines with a pair of boots running towards them, it was Norah!

When the panda finally reaches them she catches her breath and begins to speak, "I'm… coming… with you… guys."

"Really?!" Milla asks joyfully.

"Yep, I guess you guys may need my help and I also have some… personal reasons."

"Well welcome to the party, I guess." Kai announces with his infamous monotonic voice.

"Good to be in."

* * *

Vix Cole overlooks the three youths exiting the Imperial City of Zhōngyāng. A presence stood behind the rabbit, whose tone changed from a faint smile to a serious glare, the shift was off character for Vix

"So, the fabled Milla Basset is returning to the origin kingdoms?" The person behind Vix acknowledges.

Vix keeps his back to the person still focusing on the youths, "What are you doing here?" he responds, obviously displeased with the person's presence.

"I'm just here to keep tabs, you are suppose to provide information for me and my _associates_, after all."

"_Just _information, I do not wish to associate myself with whatever heinous atrocities you have planned." Vix retorts.

"Don't be so coy with me Vix, remember why you're doing this in the first place."

Vix face became filled with rage, however he felt helpless in his current situation, "Just leave those children alone."

"I won't hurt them, as long as they keep their noses where they belong. Now if you excuse me I'll be heading back to the Shang Tu." The person explains as he leaves the rabbit to himself, the man retreated with such remarkable speed that a strong wind blew past Vix.

_Please, do not get involved with these people, for your own good Norah and Milla._


	9. Revealed Past

**-9-**

After days of traveling across the Qin Plains, the youths have finally arrived at the forest, which divided the fabled trade metropolis of Dōng mén from the rest of the Qin Empire. Milla looks across the void plains, with it's dew enriched grass and scattered boulders, one more time before entering the terminal woods, _I'm going to miss these relaxing plains._

The sun began to set as Milla salvage through her backpack and looked across the forest for supplies and nutrition, the clever hound somehow convinced Kai to hunt for more food again as Norah prepares the campfire and builds shelter. The basset hound grabs a piece of cloth and uses it as a pseudo plate for the several apples, berries and nuts she had found, she neatly places the cloth near the campfire and dumps the fruit and nuts on top as though she was preparing dinner. Norah had finally finish making the tents as Kai returns with some foul and even a couple of fish.

"How did you get the fish?" Norah questions.

"I found a creek so I did some fishing." Kai explains.

The husky dumps the meat into the fire as he begins the relax and eat a couple of berries as he waits for the food to cook, "So, what is the deal with you two?" Kai asks referring to both Milla and Norah, who at first denied any relation between each other.

Kai remains silent, waiting for one of the girls to respond; both girls began to whistle hoping for the husky's impatience to overwhelm him, however the canine maintained his composure.

Milla makes a large sigh in defeat, "We used to be really close friends." she reveals.

"So what happened?"

"Well, when me and Milla were friends, she lived by herself at Dragon Valley. I would come visit her whenever my mother would come to Shang Mu for 'diplomatic' reasons, one day we agreed to sneak Milla into my mother's air ship to take her home at Shuigang." Norah explains.

"I knew you were some kind of rich girl…" Kai validates, the tone of the husky's voice implies that he was trying to annoy the panda girl, which he accomplishes.

Milla interrupts to continue, "It was about one year before the Kingdom Stone's theft and it was the first time I've ever entered the city, Shang Mu was so noisy and chaotic. When we finally arrived to Shuigang we had so much fun. I couldn't stay at Norah's house though, so we agreed that I would stay at a cave off at the shore of the island. However, after a couple of weeks things started to change…"

* * *

It was cool and windy autumn morning at Shuigang.

Milla was sleeping against a cold boulder inside the hidden caverns at the island's shore as the sound of the wind whistled through the hound's ears, relaxing her.

Norah entered the cavern, however she seemed distraught, "Milla." the panda whispered trying to wake up the hound.

Milla wakes up and sees the panda next to her, "What happened, you look upset." she yawns slowly getting up and stretching after sleeping on the hard floor.

"I- I'm not upset, just a little confused, is all!"

Milla remained silent, waiting for Norah to finally explain.

"What's with the look, it's nothing!"

"If you say so, so what do you want to do?"

"Hey, wanna go over to the city?"

The hound made a reluctant face in response, "I don't know, the city just isn't for me. It's so noisy!"

"Don't worry Shuigang is not nearly as noisy or busy as Shang Mu."

"Alright." The hound submits.

As they played at the city with it's several jade buildings and stores, the two girls noticed a group of children around their age following an adult feline outside Shuigang. Milla and Norah approaches the group and asked the adult where they were going, "Hey what's going on?" The panda demands.

The adult feline notices the young panda and hound and responded with a smile, "Oh, it seems we have a pair of new guests everybody!" the feline announced to the other children before focusing on the two young females, "What's your name?"

"My name is Norah and this is Milla, though what is going on?"

"You mean you're not here to come with us to the Kingdom Stone?"

"What's tha- " Milla naively asks before the panda girl immediately covers her mouth.

"Oh! Of course we are!" Norah fibs with a mischievous grin.

"I suppose your parents gave you permission to come to the trip?" The feline asks.

Milla tries to respond however Norah continued to cover her mouth, this time with more force, "We wouldn't be here if our parents didn't give us permission."

"Alright fair enough, then follow, but do not stray off too far."

The school children begins to leave the city following the enthusiastic teacher with Milla and Norah following behind them, the hound made a worried expression, "Norah maybe we should turn back."

"Why?! It'll be fun and interesting, also I've always wanted to visit the Kingdom Stone during the autumn festival, but my mother would never take me."

"We're not suppose to leave the city though, your mommy will get angry at you. I don't want you to get in trouble!"

"Relax, like I said before: what she doesn't know won't kill her."

"But-"

"Milla don't be a coward, we're just going to check it out and we'll be back here by supper."

"Alright, but you've been acting strange recently…"

"I'm fine, besides isn't your birthday next month?"

"Yeah, I guess. October is next month, right?"

Norah nods in response with a smile in an attempt to relax the cautious canine, "So this is like an early birthday present, obviously I'm going to give you an actual present during your actual birthday anyways, but it's the thought that count."

"Fine but we're only watching! Promise!"

"Promise…" Norah reluctantly answers, the hound noticed the tone of her voice but remains silent.

* * *

"Look, I know I might have broken that promise and caused some trouble, though in my defense it wasn't entirely my fault!" Norah argues, leaning against one arm to keep her from falling backwards as she sat in front of the campfire.

"_Some_ trouble?!" Milla was filled with outrage "You can't be serious?! We were just going to watch, but you sneaked into the Kingdom Stone's shrine! I also haven't forgiven you for manipulating me like that!"

"Well if you would've helped me instead of being some cowardly dog, then we wouldn't have gotten in trouble!" Norah counters.

"You shouldn't have done what you did to begin with!"

The argument between both the girls began to escalate into a fight, however Kai intervenes, "Hey! Ordinarily I would care less rather you girls kill each other or not, but given the current situation let's try to keep each other in one piece please." Kai mediates, as he tries to relax the enraged tween girls.

"Fine, but I don't want to talk about it anymore!" Milla retorts.

"Alright, though Norah that doesn't exactly explain how you became a mercenary, though."

"Exactly why should you care, Red Scarf." Norah retorts with a hostile tone.

Kai tries to maintain his patience with both females, _Ugh, are girls always like this? Granted I've met worse females, I wonder what that demon fox from the Red Scarves is doing, I think Norah would give her a run for her money._

After the heat died down and the group finishes their dinner they began to fall asleep.

* * *

A few days later the party finally arrives at Dōng mén, the city was a large city with several large pagodas and warehouses with a few skyscrapers piercing through the semi-flat cityscape and several trees compressed within the city. The youths saw several trains manifesting from the large settlement as it carried passengers and cargo at fairly swift speeds.

Milla made a warm and nostalgic smile as she sees the familiar Qin city that she spent almost seven months at after she left the origin kingdoms.


	10. The Eastern Trade City

**-10-**

Dōng mén is the Qin Empire's largest city in both area and population; importing and exporting several types of goods, ranging from raw material to finished products, through a network of railroads. The fabled trade city is currently the only way to enter and exit the Qin Empire, because of this there's a large variety of people from different nations, clans, factions, and professions. The diversity was mind boggling for the husky and panda as Milla welcomed them into the metropolis, "Welcome to Dōng mén!" the hound ecstatically announces to her dumbfounded companions.

"I know I've been here before, but I've never noticed how… different it is from the rest of Qin. If anything it's more similar to the origin kingdoms." Kai observes.

"I bet there's all sorts of stores! Though I'm just as surprised as Kai." Norah admits.

Milla responds with a nod and explains, "It is the only _legal _way in or out of the Qin Empire."

"Exactly how do you know this much about this city?"

"I've stayed here for seven months after leaving Shang Mu, anyways I guess we can relax before we head over to the dojo."

"Dojo?"

"Jin told me to inform the master of the Dōng mén Dojo, Jie Jilu, of what happened last week at Zhōngyāng."

"He must be important. So what was this about relaxing?"

"I assume you would want a break after… you know… fighting giant robots, resolving political corruption and traversing wild forests, I didn't mind the latter though." Milla explains.

The youths remain silent until they all nod in agreement.

"Alright, I'll be getting supplies and some more ammo, otherwise I'll be either at a shooting range or a metal shop." Kai informs.

Norah begins to whistle as she slowly collects one thousand gems in total from both canines, who notices the panda counting several crystals in her pouch, "I'm just going to borrow some money, and go shopping!" she confesses in joyful tone.

"Alright, see you guys later." Milla says as she quickly leave without explaining her plans, leaving both Kai and Norah perplexed.

* * *

At the commercial district a mysterious serpent-like person slithers down the road, "I can't believe the humiliation that bitch put me through!" Serpentine grumbles wearing a black cloak so no one can recognize him.

"If I was given another chance to get revenge, I would certainly take it!"

Serpentine notices a familiar figure, heading towards the the local gunshop, walk past him; the viper slowly turns his head and sees Kai, his eyes burning with anger, however the serpent felt satisfied with the husky's appearance.

"_Kyaa_, it's that other dog with the rifle!" Serpentine acknowledges, "_Shyahahahaha_, this is perfect, ABSOLUTELY PERFECT… I can take my revenge by starting with that boy.", the viper slithers his way into the gun shop in pursuit of the siberian husky.

Kai walks up to the counter, "I need some physical and energy bullets, how much for them?"

"Two gems per round for the physical bullets, ten gems per container for the energy bullets." The shop owner confidently informs.

"That's a bit expensive, but I guess Dōng mén is quite the wealthy city. Just when I thought Běifēng was expensive."

"Běifēng and Dōng mén are the two largest cities in the empire, Běifēng provides us with raw material and we create the finished goods to be distributed throughout Avalice, last time I checked Dōng mén's best trading partner was Shang Mu. In general we have a surplus of supply."

"Somehow I'm not surprised."

"Ironic, huh? If anything the people of Dōng mén are closer to the origin kingdoms than their own empire."

Serpentine eavesdrops on the conversation as he hides in the shadows making an intrigued smirk, _Interesting, this is the kind of information I could use._

As Kai exits the store Serpentine seamlessly follows the supposedly unsuspecting husky, he was careful not to make any noise or seem suspicious to any bystanders so that no one would contact the authorities, after all the viper was now at large and if anyone would discover him, he would have to fight his way out of the city.

Serpentine continues to follow the canine to the Dōng mén park, where immediately the husky draws his pistol directly at Serpentine, out of reflex the viper draws his own pistol at Kai. Both marksmen gestures with cold stares as bystanders flee in terror.

* * *

Norah was carrying several shopping bags around her arms, as she ate a danish she bought at a bakery.

"I may be a mercenary, but I still got to make a living!" The panda cheerfully expresses to herself as she quickly looks through her remaining gem supply after eating her danish, _I should be more careful how much money I spend… _

_Nah, Milla said to enjoy ourselves, who am I to deny such a request._

The panda girl continues to stroll down the sidewalk, whistling a popular tune, remaining calm, composed and under euphoria.

"Excuse me, miss." Norah hears a voice as she strolled through the city, she turns around in response and sees a fourteen years old tibetan wolf boy with red/orange fur and white hair; wearing a beige gi and was barefooted while holding twin blades on his back.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I came from the Dōng mén Dojo to an old friend who's suppose arrive here today." The boy explains, "By any chance have you seen a basset hound girl, about two years younger than me with orange hair, beige fur, wearing a beige top, pants and brown gloves with asymmetrically colored symbols like the anklets she also wear."

Norah was surprised to hear the detailed description of Milla from the wolf boy, as though he knew her personally, "eh… yeah… you're describing Milla Basset, aren't you? I know her."

"Ah! So you know her?! My name is Zhao Shi"

"Norah… you can just call me Norah, you said your name is Zao?"

The wolf drops his head in mixture of exasperation and shame, "Why do most people mispronounce my name like that… It's not like Zao and Zhao sounds similar…" he mumbles.

"Oh, sorry."

"It's fine." Zhao shakes his head to focus on subject at hand, "You said you knew Milla Basset?"

"Yeah, I came here with her."

"So you're one of the people whose traveling with her?!"

"Pretty much, you're from the Dōng mén Dojo, right?"

"Of course… I thought that was the first thing I said."

"Out of curiosity how _well _do you know Milla?"

"C-come again?" Zhao hesitantly responds, aware of what Norah meant by that question.

"Oh nothing, nothing… nothing! Let's just find Milla."

Zhao responds with a short nod, as Norah assists him on his search for Milla. As they browse through the city looking for the elusive hound they notice a large crowd of panicking civilians retreating from the Dōng mén park. Norah and Zhao agrees to investigate, after running against the chaotic crowd they find Kai and Serpentine with their pistols drawn against each other.

"What the heck are you doing?!" Norah demands, still holding the several bags around her arms.

"I should say the same for you, what's with all the shopping bags. Anyways I'm not doing anything special, just dealing with prying snake" Kai retorts.

"Snake?" The wolf aks before noticing the armored yellow-eyed viper pointing it's own pistol against the husky, "So this is Serpentine."

* * *

Meanwhile Milla was at the outskirts of the large metropolis sitting on a bench which overlooks the city, the hound sat calmly as she makes a deep breath, _It been more than a year since I've entered the Dōng mén Dojo, I also haven't forgotten that promise I made with Fang back at Běifēng… _

"_Milla I want you to promise me something"_

"_Yeah, what is it?"_

"_When you go back to Dōng mén, please tell Zhao and Ginger that I really miss them and that their big sis is trying her best to give them a better life, that she's always looking out for them; that I haven't forgotten them."_

"_I think that they will understand, I wish I had a sister like you."_

The basset hound makes a warm smile as the calm breeze passes her, however the soothing sound of the wind is broken by a familiar sharp and violent sound, like a gunshot. Milla recognizes the gunshot, it was Kai.


	11. Dōng mén Dojo

**-11-**

Milla rushes into the city to investigate the location she heard the gunshot from earlier, _I hope Kai and Norah is alright!_ The hounds heart begins to race as she runs faster through the crowded streets, towards the Dōng mén park. As Milla finally reaches her destination she catches her breath.

"You're alright, not exactly the most appropriate way to meet a friend." Mille hears a familiar male voice, she looks up in front of her and sees a tibetan wolf boy who gestures with a smile, the exhausted hound attempts to make a smile in return.

"Zhao!" Milla responds in glee before noticing Norah behind him; her face became filled with rage, "Now what's going on?! What are you doing with _her_?!" the hound demands in an exasperated tone as she point directly at the panda girl, who responds with an equally aggressive expression. Milla's sudden wrath catches the wolf off guard.

"She was helping me find you, am I missing something?" Zhao attempts to relax the angry hound, "What did you think we were doing?"

"Yeah, what did you think _we_ were doing?" Norah taunts.

Milla growls in response, she notices a husky and viper exchanging bullets with their respective dual pistols, "What the heck is Kai doing fighting Serpentine, by himself?!". Ignoring the panda and wolf, she runs head first into the conflict.

Meanwhile the husky and viper were taking cover behind the several trees throughout the park, "GIVE UP ALREADY CREATURE!" Serpentine yells out of impatience.

"Creature? You're a snake, last time I checked snakes are animals too." Kai retorts.

Serpentine was stupefied by the remark, he couldn't find an argument against the husky's superior logic, "ENOUGH TALK, JUST DIE ALREADY!" Serpentine responds as he aims his dual pistols at the sky, ready to perform his bullet rain technique, _He can't avoid this!_

Immediately before the serpent can fire his weapons Milla drops in front of him, softly landing from the canopy of trees, crouched with her katana drawn and filled with psychic energy, "WHAT THE?!" Serpentine was caught completely off guard.

The hound swiftly strikes, forcing the viper to dodge, thus canceling his attack. Milla responds with a powerful psychic attack, blasting the viper out of safety. Without question Kai fires his pistols at the stunned serpent, however the viper avoids the attack and quickly charges at the husky, unfortunately the husky had ran out of ammo and unable to reload fast enough before the viper can fire his energy bullets at the husky at point blank range, Kai snaps his tongue in frustration.

Sudden Zhao jumps in front of the charging viper in the husky's defense, in a matter of seconds the wolf quickly draws his dual swords and counter attacks. Serpentine was quickly defeated as the offending canine destroys his duel pistols, "You infuriating wolf!" Serpentine growls.

"I'm sorry for destroying your weapons, but trying to waste civilians isn't exactly… allowed." Zhao retorts.

"Who do you think you are?!"

"I should be asking the same question, I'll give you a choice: you can retreat now or you can get arrested, it's one against four." The wolf tone becomes serious.

Serpentine observe the other youths surrounding him before he cracks a smile, "_Shyahahahahaha_, Your compassion will lead to your downfall, REMEMBER THAT!" he exclaims as he swiftly retreats.

As Serpentine slithers through the alley ways, attempting to escape the city, he notices a presence behind him. In reflex the serpent makes a sharp turn and immediately fires his remaining rocket however the person evades the attack at blinding speeds, seconds later the person was standing about two feet passively in front of semi-intimidated viper. A sweat began to roll down the serpents face as the person made a faint smirk.

"Hello there Serpentine, do not be afraid, I'm not here to harm you. In fact we have common _hindrance_." The person purs.

"You're not the first one to refer to that dog, and look at where that fool is now!"

"Ah yes, I'm aware of the fate your former compatriot, Kongzhi Dong. I assure you that this will be different."

"Give me a reason why I should believe that crap."

The figure begins to walk towards Serpentine exiting the shade which obscured his face, as two hooded figures appears behind the man, Serpentine is left petrified by the person's identity.

* * *

The youths follows Zhao up several flights of stairs to where the Dōng mén Dojo resides, as the group finally reaches the summit they are met with a large complex made with red hardwood and cobblestone.

"Jie is waiting for you at the shrine, also thank you Milla." Zhao explains.

"Thank you for what?" Milla asks.

"For this…" Zhao says as an older female tibetan wolf appears before the party as they enter the dojo.

"Fang!"

"Well then, so you decided to see your brother and sister yourself." Kai observes with a monotonous tone, which like usual somewhat annoyed the older female wolf.

"Good to see you too, and who's this." Fang retorts as she refers to the lonesome panda girl who felt out of place, although she never expresses this.

"This is Norah, she's a friend of Milla and…" Zhao explains, trying to introduce the husky whose name escapes him.

"Kai."

"Kai!" Zhao chuckles, he changes into a serious tone and briefly directs his attention to one of the guards, "We bumped into some trouble back at the city though, Serpentine is in the city"

"We will inform the mayor of this, thank you for reporting this Zhao Shi." The guard informs as he exits the dojo with three other guards.

"It sounds like you had an interesting day." Fang acknowledges.

Zhao gestures with a smirk as he turns his attention back at the party, "Jie will like to see you alone, Mills"

Milla's face turns red in embarrassment as the husky and panda refrains themselves from laughing at the wolf's remark, Fang slaps Zhao behind the head, "Hey, that's not how you treat a friend!" she snarls at her younger brother.

"It's alright I'll just be sure to refer to him as 'Zao' next time." Milla reinsures with a cool expression as she head over to the ancient shrine.

Zhao makes a large sigh, and sees the other two youths holding their laughs, "Is something funny?"

"No." Norah faintly responds.

"Well let's head over to the mess hall and have some dinner, what d'ya say?"

The cafeteria was lively as it consisted of students, teachers and guards. The younger students were initially separated from the older students as the teachers watches over them, however the teachers were usually lenient about the rules and the different students would sit where ever they want. Fang, Zhao, Kai and Norah were sitting on their own table as they eat their dinner, "Where's Ginger?" Fang aks Zhao.

"Um…"

"Where is Ginger, Zhao!" Fang slowly says in a condescending tone.

"I! I thought she was with you!"

"Missing some-" Kai interrupts, however he notices a young tibetan wolf girl, wearing a small dress, peeking her head out the entrance door, "I think I found her."

Fang sees the girl at the door, "Hey! Ginger come on, are you going to eat dinner with us?"

The girl immediately runs away, Zhao chases after the girl in response, "Ginger wait!"

Fang expression becomes desolate in response as she makes a large sigh.

"Who was she?" Norah asks, obviously unaware of the situation; Kai closes his eyes and remains silent in respect.

"She's my little sister, Ginger Shi, ever since I arrived at Dōng mén she've been distant from me and Zhao."

"Oh, sorry I asked. Why haven't you tried talking to her?"

"I have but she actively avoids me and when I do find her she usually just ignores me."

"What did you do, for her to act that way…"

"Norah." Kai interrupts, giving the panda girl a serious expression and tilting his head towards the melancholy wolf, she knew that she should stop asking question.

* * *

Milla reaches the ancient shrine where she saw a short elderly bobcat with yellow-green fur and wore a black gi with golden outlines. At first the feline faces the basset hound with a stern and serious face, after both Jie and Milla bow to each other in respect the bobcat makes a warm smile, "I see you've been busy Milla Basset, I must say despite the little time we had knowing each other, I'm quite proud of you. I can see that Jin have helped you in your training, very good… very good indeed" Jie chuckles.

"You could've told me why you sent me to Jin in the first place… though if you didn't I wouldn't have met so many new people."

"I see you learned a lot from my quest, however I apologize for the inconvenience."

"You shouldn't! I'm grateful for it, anyways Jin sent me to-"

"I'm aware of what happened with Yasmine and Kongzhi. Though it took that blasted earth dragon long enough to finally see her again."

"Everything went well in the end though."

"Indeed, also I'm aware you need to enter Shang Mu, well lucky for you I happen to have three tickets for the train to Shang Mu."

"W-wait how do you-"

"Know about Kai and Norah? Child I may be old but I'm still quite sharp, I've done research.", The dojo master made a quick serious expression, _This world is truly small, what are the odds that these children of all people will meet each other like this?_

"Jie?"

"My apologies, I was thinking is all, either way I want you to remain careful."

Milla remains silent.

"I fear that your recent actions, though valiant, may result in an increase of shady activity."

"That doesn't seem new to me, my own identity already causes trouble."

"I understand that fame is a heavy burden to bare, reinforcing your responsibilities, however this should encourage you to fight back and do what's right."

Milla responds with a determined nod, "You're right!"

"Good to hear, you may leave now. Ah, also you might meet another important person at Shang Mu."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Jie responds with a nod, "You may reunite with your friends."

As Milla leaves the shrine she takes a quick look over the cliff adjacent to the shrine and sees Ginger by the lake, the hound decides to investigate. Milla reaches the beach however she hears Zhao calling Ginger's name in the distance, and remains behind a couple of ferns.

"Ginger! Ginger!"

Zhao finally finds the younger wolf sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, "Ginger, please come back to the dojo, it's getting late." Zhao pleas as he sees the sunset.

"Leave me alone!" Ginger cries, "I want to be left alone!"

"Ginger, I know she sent us away for four years ago, but-"

"Shut up!" The girl screamed in a hostile tone.

Zhao submits and slowly steps away, "Just don't stay out here for too long."

As the distraught wolf boy walks back to the dojo the hound confronts him.

"How long were you here?" Zhao asks, surprised to meet Milla.

"Long enough, what happened?" Milla responds in a worried tone.

Ginger was by herself, she looked at her reflection at the surface of the crystal clear lake as the moon rises, a basset hound slowly walks over to the agitated wolf girl and sits next to her in a similar fashion.

"Hi." Milla softly says.

"Hi." Ginger responds depressed.

"What's wrong, why have you been so distant from your brother and sister."

Ginger remains silent.

"Please, at least talk to me."

"It's… why?! Why did Fang have to send me and Zhao away?!"

"You should be asking Fang that."

"How can I though? _You _wouldn't understand."

Milla remains calm but saddened "You're right, I wouldn't. I never had siblings, I never had parents, I never had family. For the longest I saw Norah as a sister but that changed, and I feel like I left my new family behind. I never had that luxury, don't take it for granted!"

"I- I'm sorry Milla, I didn't mean to be-"

"It's fine, come on let's head back to the dojo before it get's too late."

Milla and Ginger walks back to the dojo, as they arrive back to the complex and enters the dormitory, the hound crouches down to the girl's height and holds the wolf by the shoulders, "So, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to apologize to Zhao and Fang."

"And."

"I'm also going to ask Fang why she sent me and Zhao here."

Milla made a short nod, "Don't let her change the topic either." Both canines hears a monotonic voice, Ginger turns her head and sees a husky leaning against the wall with a panda girl next to him.

"Well, what are you waiting for, go find your brother and sister." Norah recommends.

The wolf girl ran towards her older sister's room, however before she left the dormitory she walked up to Norah and whispers something in the panda's ear. Norah face is filled with distraught and guilt.

"What did she tell you?" Milla asks.

"Nothing…" Norah's tone and character becomes softer.

"Well, I think we should be sleeping soon." Kai suggests.

Milla nods in agreement "Yeah, we have a long day tomorrow."


	12. Departure and Forgiveness

**I deeply apologize for not noticing this mistake much earlier, please If such an event happens again please inform me, Thank You, and I hope this didn't ruin your experience.**

**-Ultrablockstar**

* * *

**-12-**

A large vehicle arrived at ancient ruins east of Dragon Valley, as the vehicle stopped a large group of children exits the bus, including a basset hound and panda girl who observed in amazement the large crowd of people entering the ruins to pay tribute on the day before the autumn festival. The children remains attentive as their teacher speaks "Welcome children to Relic Maze, home to the Kingdom Stone." The adult feline introduced.

The children, including Milla remained still as the adult explains how the Kingdom Stone functions and it's history. However Norah became uninterested and retains a bored expression.

"According to legend, long ago a majestic dragon arrived at Avalice in a ball of fire, our ancestors were so captivated by it's beauty and power that they found three kingdoms in it's honor; who would like say the names of those kingdoms?"

One student raises her hand, "Shang Mu, Shang Tu, and Shuigang!" she replied with much pride.

"Very good! Who would like to tell the rest of class what happened next?" The teacher saw the distant hound and panda separated from the rest of class, "How about one of you girls?"

"Uh-" Milla spoke, however she didn't know much about her planet's history, Norah interrupted and answered for her.

"Once the cities were built the Dragon transformed into the Kingdom Stone, and with it's large source of energy the three kingdoms used it to power our technology while preserving peace and prosperity… sort of…" Norah explained in a rude uninterested manner.

The feline attempts to ignore the panda's tone, "Well... that is correct…" the teacher shakes her head in exasperation, "Anyways let's enter one of the crystal shrines and see how one would 'charge up'"

The group of children follows their chaperone, "That was mean!" Milla scalded Norah for her previous attitude.

"It's not my fault I already knew this, I came here to see how the Kingdom Stone works!"

"You could've at least tried to pretend you care." Milla began to whisper, "We may not be her students, but that doesn't mean we should be disrespectful!"

"If you want to be that way, then you can go without me!", Norah storms off leaving Milla with the rest of the children, the hound sighed and followed the school of students to one of the charge up stations.

Milla enters the crystal shrine and sees a large line of people leading to a large topaz crystal, at the end of the line was a person holding a smaller clear crystal. The person was instructed to place the crystal in a small chamber where the crystal was charged with a shining blue energy.

"The charge up stations are used to supply those specialized crystals with energy from the Kingdom Stone which is used to power our technology."

"For how long?" Milla naively asked without her panda companion around to interrupt her.

The feline makes a smile, "Usually for about a year, of course there have been some exceptions." the adult looks throughout the crowd of children and notices the panda girl's absence, "Hey where's your friend?"

"She… she needed to go pee." Milla fibs.

"Oh alright, well hopefully she'll be back soon."

"Um, may I please be excused, I need to go pee too!"

"Of course, make sure you come back with your friend."

Milla rushed out of the shrine and tried to maneuver her way past the crowd people, the hound made a deep breath and was able to vaguely identify the lost panda's scent. The scent led the hound deeper into the ruins, much deeper than any citizen is allowed, as she sneaked past the guards she found a hidden entrance with a set of stairs which led very deep underground. When Milla reached the bottom of the stairs she entered a large underground chamber consisting of massive pillars surrounding a large platform, sunlight beamed down to the center of the chamber from an opening at the ceiling. She sees Norah behind one of the pillars, the canine runs over to the panda, "Norah! What are you doing here?!" Milla whispers in a frightened tone.

"Oh Milla, you came! Look over there!" Norah says in excitement as she points towards something at the center of the chamber.

Milla squints her eyes and sees a large blue crystalline sphere mounted on a ancient stone pedestal, the hound was captivated by the stone's glowing energy, "I-Is that-"

"mhm, it's the one and only Kingdom Stone."

"Alright, we saw it let's get back with the others."

"No, we need a closer look!" Norah disregarded the basset hound's warning, and dashes closer to the Kingdom Stone with Milla following right behind her.

"Norah, please. We're not suppose to be in here!"

"Stop being so afraid, what do you think would happen if I touched it?"

"Norah, don't!"

Norah slowly gets even closer to the stone as she stretched her hand over to the energy rich sphere. The panda touches the relic, in response the stone made a faint glow which attracted both girls closer to it's beauty, however suddenly a sharp combustion blasts both girls away from the Kingdom Stone, thankfully the stone remained intact but the blast alerted the guards, Milla and Norah were left injured by the explosion, "How-" the panda girl said in disbelief.

Milla hears footsteps in the distance, "Someone is at the Kingdom Stone's chamber!".

"Someone's coming!" The hound calls, as she quickly gets up.

"I-" Norah remained speechless, she tried to get up but the explosion injured her more than Milla, "I can't move, Milla help me." the panda grunted.

The basset hound tried to help the panda on her feet however Norah was barely able stay up, "We're going to get caught!" Milla cries as she carefully let go of Norah.

"We'll think of something" Norah reasons desperately.

Milla began to panic as she hyperventilate, "I'm sorry Norah."

"Milla… MILLA?!"

"Your mommy is important, right? She can figure something out, you'll be fine." Milla reasons as she abandons the panda girl, the basset hound had tears running down her cheeks, _I'm sorry… _

"Milla… MILLA DON'T!"

* * *

Milla suddenly wakes up, breathing heavy and exhausted, she takes a quick look at the clock in her dorm as she adjusts her eyes to the faint moonlight shining down on her bed which stood next to the window, the clock read one-fifteen in the morning. The basset hound holds on to her head with one hand as she feels a sharp pain in her head, unable to relieve the headache she slowly gets up from her bed and carefully walks out of her room with only her tank top and capris on.

Exiting the dorms this late at night in the Dōng mén Dojo were forbidden, so Milla had to be careful not to alert anyone as she slowly sneaks into the girl's bathroom. In the girl's bathroom she turns on one of the sinks and splashes cold water on her face to wake herself up and relieve her migraine.

As the hound exits the bathroom she hears faint footsteps at the halls, she remains hidden in the small pathway perpendicular to the hallway.

"Hey, you don't have to hide. You're having those nightmares again… aren't you?" Milla hears a familiar male voice, she enters the halls and sees Zhao in a beige tank top of his own with beige shorts to complement his top.

"How did you know I woke up?" The hound questions.

"I didn't, I just found it strange how Kai told me how you haven't had nightmares for four months, especially when you would frequently have nightmares when you first stayed here for about a year ago."

"This one wasn't about _that_, though."

"Then what was it about?" Zhao ponders a moment, "Was it about Norah?"

Milla face becomes desolate and then filled with guilt, the thought triggers her headache again, she grabs on to her head in pain, "I! I guess it wasn't entirely her fault…" Milla starts to explain but her migraine interrupts her as she clutches her head in pain.

Zhao sees the hound's gesture, "Hey follow me to the infirmary." he suggests.

After the two canines enter the nurse's office, Zhao goes into the desk drawer, "The nurse would always tell me that health petals are best for physical injuries and pain otherwise herbs or medication is the better choice." Zhao explains as he finds a bottle of pain relievers, "I know you prefer herbal tea for this, but we can't exactly make tea this late at night, so these pills are your only option." the wolf squint his eyes to read the bottle, "Alright, it says it's about 250 milligrams." he tosses the bottle towards Milla, the hound stares at the container with indifference.

"Um, do I have to swallow one of these…" Milla asks.

"Actually you have to swallow two, well… it depends, how bad is your headache?"

The hound sighs in response and reluctantly swallows two pills, Milla is disgusted by to taste.

"I should've told you to use a cup of water instead of your saliva."

"Rrrgh, that would have been nice to know!"

"I'm sorry your naivety is kind'a funny." Zhao mocks, the wolf's tone suddenly becomes serious "We should be heading back to bed, I think it's best that you resolve your issues with Norah youself. Also I'm saying this because admittedly Kai already told me what he knows about you two."

"Thank you, for everything."

"Hey! It's no problem, we're friends and you helped out me and my siblings, it's only fair that I help you and your friends."

_Friend? I- I haven't referred to Norah as my friend in years… _

* * *

It was about eight in the morning and Norah had finished getting dressed for the day ahead, she hears a soft knock behind her door, "Come in." she responds.

Milla walks into the panda's room already dressed herself, she notices that Norah was also dressed, "Hi." she initiates.

"Oh, hi Milla."

"I- I want to say I'm sorry."

Norah immediately became stagnate from the apology, "S-sorry for what?"

"Sorry for everything, for abandoning you three years ago and for being mean to you…"

"Milla."

"...I really am though; you were right, I was cowardly and I should've helped you. In fact now that I think about it, when I met Lilac and Carol I wanted to be brave like them…"

"M-Milla."

"...What I'm trying to say is that I don't want to return to Shang Mu wi-"

"Milla!" Norah harshly interrupts, "I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have broken that promise and I guess my curiosity and pride got the better of me, you had no choice."

Milla was left stunned by Norah's apology "Why are you apologizing?!"

"Because of what Ginger told me, she said that you used to see me as the sister you never had."

Milla remains silent in a mixture of astonishment and emotional relief.

"Hey, let's start fresh!" Norah suggests with sudden exuberance, "My name is Norah!"

Milla playing along makes a large smile in response, "Nice to meet you Norah, my name is Milla!"

After both girls reintroduces themselves they both laugh in relief and exits the panda's dorm, they see both Zhao and Kai waiting just outside the door.

"I agreed that I will stay here to help out Jie with the dojo, so I'll just say goodbye now. Fang and Ginger are waiting at the train station to say goodbye too." Zhao explains, as Milla walks up to him and gives him a hug in return, "It was nice meeting you two as well." he continues, focusing on Norah and Kai.

It was ten o'clock in the morning, the party finally reaches the train station at the commercial district of Dōng mén, there both Fang and Ginger were waiting while the train to Shang Mu was awaiting the remainder of the passengers before it leaves as scheduled.

"Took you long enough, hurry the train is about to leave." Fang warns.

"Alright, let's go girls." Kai says in a monotonous tone towards Milla and Norah before focusing on both of the tibetan wolves, "C'ya later."

"It was nice to meet you too." Norah responds.

Milla enters the train with the other two youths, as they enter the train they find a booth, she sat next to the window with Kai sitting on the opposite side and Norah adjacent to her. The train begins to move as the basset hound sees both wolves waving goodbye, she waves her hand as she leans outside of the window in response, "I'll miss you!" Milla calls out as the train begins to exit the city.

The youths witness as their surroundings slowly transitions from the calm metropolis of Dōng mén to the atmospheric forests of Qin. After a couple of hours the train exits Qin territory, a few more hours later Milla sees the familiar deserts and canyons of Dragon Valley in the distance. It was now half past five o'clock in the evening and the youths looks outside the window one last time and sees the large skyline of several skyscrapers and large buildings across the massive lake.

After two years, Milla Basset have returned to the origin kingdoms.


	13. The Forest Metropolis of Shang Mu

**-13-**

The train slows down as it arrives at the Shang Mu Train Station, the youths prepared to leave the locomotive before Milla interrupts the other two youths, "Hey, can we have our cloaks on when we go into the city" the hound timidly asks.

"Why would we need to wear our cloaks?" Kai questions.

"Uh-" Milla attempts to find an excuse, "I heard it was going to rain later today, could never be too careful!" she argues, both Kai and Norah remain skeptical of the hound's motives.

"Alright."

Kai's sudden compliance catches both the hound and panda by surprise, who looks at each other in disbelief. Milla quickly grabs her beige cloak and lifts up the hood which made her seem somewhat unrecognizable as Kai and Norah puts on their grey and purple cloaks respectively with their hoods off.

"First thing's first… I'm hungry" Norah complains as the youths exits the train station and began to walk through the bright, busy and vibrant streets of Shang Mu. Several skyscrapers and building made from either stone brick or concrete ravaged the city's skyline with a blend of primary colors, the predominant hue being crimson red. Lights of white and yellow brightens the city with an indistinguishable glow which may even rival the spiralling blue glow found in the Avalician night sky. Monuments, attractions and stores are found throughout the metropolis; similar to Dōng mén, Shang Mu's main focus was towards it's economy and trade. Several locomotives, vehicles and vessels are found throughout the city, transporting an array of goods as the large crowds of people and the diversity among them kept the city as lively as ever; truly there was no city like Shang Mu in all of Avalice, it's possibly the largest in the world.

The youths finds a restaurant and decide to eat dinner there, they find an available booth and sat in the same orientation as when they were in train about thirty minutes ago.

"So, who wants sushi!" Milla joyfully asks.

"Alright." Kai monotonously complies.

Both girls were once again surprised by the husky's compliance, the hound ignores the other canine's strange behavior and calls the waitress, "How may I help you?" the waitress politely asks.

"Give us the biggest plate of sushi you have!" Milla explains, the waitress responds with a short nod, "I'm going to use the restroom." the hound informs her friends.

As Milla leaves to use the restroom, Norah immediately interrogates the nonchalant husky sitting across from her, "Alright, what's the big idea?" she demands.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Kai casually responds.

"I mean, you're usually not this complacent. Do you honestly believe that overcast story, I've known Milla for eight years… she's an awful liar"

"I know she lied, she've been acting strange ever since we entered Shang Mu territory; quite frankly I don't want to argue with her."

Norah remains silent.

"She doesn't want to attract attention."

"Oh, yeah I guess being one of the 'saviors of Avalice' can have that effect, though if that were me I would be taking full advantage of that fame… but I'm not Milla."

"Actually, it does benefit us more to remain anonymous until we reach the City Hall."

Norah changes the subject, "Explain to me something: Why did you decide to travel with Milla?"

Kai remains silent for a moment as he ponders on how he should explain his motives, "For no particular reason."

"That's not an answer!" The panda argues,

"I'm serious, I just joined up with her because I felt it would be interesting-"

"Hey don't lie to her." Kai is caught by surprise when he hears Milla's response from the booth behind him, "You joined because I offered you one thousand five hundred gems, just to save a girl." Milla teases in a sarcastic manner as she jumps into the booth and lands next to the monotonic husky.

"That's only the partial truth, you offered me one thousand gems because the mayor of Xīchéng initially offered two thousand, we agreed to split the reward 50/50."

"To be fair, your machines did kidnap Talia."

"I thought we agreed that wasn't my fault."

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding."

"Anyways, it was Talia who made her father increase the reward to three thousand."

While Kai and Milla were arguing, Norah was observing the argument while drinking some water through a straw from a glass cup in the meantime, after a couple of minutes of arguing the waitress returns with a massive plate of sushi on both her hands, "Here you kids go!" she kindly informs.

Norah was intimidated by the large amount of food as both canines began to eat the raw fish, the husky ate one piece of sushi one at a time as the hound was eating the sushi in large bunches, _Milla have a large appetite as usual._

After about an hour the group leaves the dinner and begins starts to walk towards the City Hall, "So Milla how did you and your friends save Avalice?" Kai asks.

Milla began to stutter her words in response to the question "Um, well we busted into Brevon's launch sight at the Shuigang Snowfields, then we snuck into his dreadnaught, then we defeated Brevon but then the dreadnaught self-destructed and the Kingdom Stone transformed." she vaguely explains.

"That's all? Seems a bit vague." Norah retorts.

"Any details?" Kai asks.

"I can't exactly remember the details." Milla argues, this was a lie.

"Alright, so how far are we to the City Hall, exactly."

Milla simply shrugs her shoulders in response, both Kai and Norah facepalms and then sigh, "I'll ask for directions." Norah assures.

"I'll get some more supplies, Milla you stay here."

"Why do I have to be the one to stay here?" Milla complains, "Seriously, how old do you think I am?"

"Twelve." Kai and Norah responds in unison, the husky continues, "Just stay here."

"Why not we meet here instead, I'm not doing nothing! you know what… let's meet at the shopping mall."

Kai ponders a moment, "Fine, just don't cause any trouble. The last time you strayed off in such a big city, we met _her_." the husky references as he point towards the panda behind him.

"Hey!" Norah growls.

"Alright, see you two later." Milla says as she starts run over to Zao's Shopping Mall.


	14. Greatest Swordsman

**-14-**

The cloaked hound enters the shopping mall, the plaza was as vibrant as the rest of the city with of beige, grey, and red concrete walls, red pillars, golden trims and reaching up to about three stories in height, consisting of several attraction and stores. As the hound ponders to herself as she walks across the massive halls of the mall, _Where should I first?_

_I can go shopping, get on a ride, play at the arcade, watch a movie, maybe do a duel or I can go to the casino and watch a show._

Milla decides to enter the casino which had several entrances, two of those entrances led to Zao's Shopping Mall. The casino main hall consisted of rows slot machines and jade colored walls and several potted plants; at the intersection of the main hall were two sets of stairs adjacent to four pillars of a similar hue to the walls. The hound observes several people using these slot machine however enjoyment would be quickly replaced with disappointment whenever someone would lose, Milla knew better not to gamble with those machine unless she absolutely knew she could win. After climbing up the stairs Milla reaches the second floor of the casino which had several billiard tables and roulettes, the lone hound also notices some people playing either blackjack or poker, later finding the entrance to the auditorium.

After buying a ticket, the hound enters the casino's auditorium and sees hundreds of people watching a magician's latest performance, "excuse me… pardon me… sorry" Milla politely whispers as she passes through the spectators and takes her seat.

"Now for my latest trick, I will now put my assistant in this coffin!" The magician opens the rectangular metallic box revealing spikes at the side of the door, the crowd gasps in horror, "Do not fear, I will save this woman with my mystical powers!" the magician reassures in a commanding voice.

Milla watches in interest however disappointed, _She's just going to go through a secret entrance at the back of the coffin, likely when some kind of smokescreen happens… _

_It feels weird when you've seen actual magic and then see this, I still find it fun to watch, it's just isn't the same… _

_I wonder how Pliny is doing, I remember when at one point she told me about all sorts of tricks and illusions,_

_Granted she did try to kill me when we first met, though like me-_

Milla's thoughts were interrupted by sudden cheering among the crowd, she sees the magician and his assistants bowing, assuming the show ended the hound began to get up and leave, "Hey! where you're going?" one person asks in response to Milla's planned departure.

"Isn't the show over?" The hound explains.

"Not quite, I think there's one more act."

"Is there?!", Milla sits back down and waits for the next performance. After waiting about ten minutes all of the lights are immediately turned off which causes confusion among the audience.

"What's going on?"

"Guys, I'm scared!"

"What happened to the lights?!"

"_Ladies and Gentlemen!"_

Music began to play as three spotlights converge at the center of the stage, the audience becomes silent. To Milla's surprise the spotlights reveals a fox boy with orange fur, black and white markings with white hair; he wore a white cargo jacket with orange outlines, long sleeves however short torso, underneath was a close-fit black t-shirt; he wore beige cargo pants and brown shoes; the boy's whole attire were quite whimsical but something about him was very charming, especially to the girls among the audience.

"_Allow me to introduce myself!" _The vulpine successfully amplifies his voice, he was calm yet dramatic, "_I am Avalice's greatest swordsman and entertainer, Chan Fokkusu!" _the fox self proclaims with much optimism.

Milla remains skeptical however the eccentric vulpine have caught her attention, _...greatest swordsman… _

Chan makes a brief cough as the lights are turned back on, "Alright, so for my first performance I will be fighting three people at once, in **thirty seconds**!" he explains, now speaking in normal volume as he draws his sword, which was a large, possibly heavy buster sword with a steel blade and black handle.

"Is that even possible?!" One observer says at Milla's left.

"I doubt it." Another responds, who sat at Milla's right.

Both spectators notices the katana peaking out of Milla's cloak, the person on the right begins to speak, "Hey girl, I couldn't help but noticed that you know a thing or two about swordplay. Do you think what this boy is claiming is possible?"

"Well, I've seen people do it." Milla answers as she scratches her head in a mixture of flattery and naivety.

"Psh, maybe if he was a Dragon." The other person retorts.

Three other swordsmen surrounds and attacks Chan, who immediately pulls out a small black orb in between his index and middle finger and throws it against the floor producing a strangely colorful smoke and confusing the opposing swordsmen, in an instant the fox was gone. The audience was captivated by the fox's disappearance, then in a acrobatic fashion Chan falls from the scaffolding throwing two more smoke bombs, one from each hand and with one strike with his sword the fox subdues his opponents just five seconds before the time limit.

Everyone were flabberghasted by the fox's skilful use of evasion and swordplay, Chan gestures with a bow of courtesy towards the audience, as the crowd cheer and clap the fox made a smile in return, "The show have only just begun!" Chan explains "Today I want to try something new! Who wants to fight in a duel against me, just a friendly duel, no hurting each other, 'kay?"

The spectators spoke among each other, they knew they were no match for him. Milla thought over the situation, _I want to, but then I'll be getting into other's business, I know Kai and Norah wouldn't want that… _

_One little duel though, what could go wrong… right?_

Milla stands up and responds, "I'll volunteer!" she announces with much determination catching the audience completely off guard, Chan however retains his smile.

"Well then mysterious young lady, would you care to introduce yourself to the audience?" Chan kindly asks as the basset hound climbs up to the stage with her cloak on.

"Um-" Milla didn't want to say her real name, so she makes up one for herself, "M-Melia."

"Well Melia, what do you plan to fight with?"

Milla draws her katana in response, "I'm going to use my sword." she answers with a determined and focused face, an expression that Chan read with familiarity.

"Short Sword… interesting choice, normally one would use such a katana if they possess another weapon, sense it's such a light tool… light but still strong."

"Thank you." Milla retorts.

Both the hound and fox prepare their swords and lunge at each other, the blades colliding with each other with much force however Chan was stronger. Struggling to keep up with the opposing fox's strength, Milla steps back and attempts to flank the vulpine, however the fox catches on to Milla's stratagem and quickly uses a smoke bomb, the canine coughs as some of the smoke hits her face. Chan appears behind the seemingly unsuspecting hound, however she responds with a faint smile, Milla quickly turns around and blocks the fox's assault.

"Impressive, how did you know I was behind you?" Chan questions, his thoughts began to go full circle, "You're a hound aren't you?"

"Yeah…" Milla answers with a reluctant tone.

Milla and Chan break away from each other, they were surprisingly evenly matched. The fox examines the hound's stance, _Something about this girl is familiar… _

_It can't be… she is… _

Chan makes a small smirk, he immediately dashes towards the hound, Milla prepared to block the vulpine's strike again however in at the last minute the fox changes the position of his sword successfully disarming the her with a powerful attack, then swings his sword at the hound without intentions of hurting the girl. Out of reflex Milla creates an energy shield which blocks the fox's attack then she follows with a shield burst, the powerful counter attack recoils both youths away from each other, the recoil removes the hood from the basset hound's head, revealing her face. The audience are shocked to discover the identity of the girl standing before them; Milla looks around and sees the frozen faces of the audience, with a nervous laugh she responds, "Ehehe, hi…"


	15. Unwanted Attention

**-15-**

Milla stood petrified as the audience of hundreds of people observes the hound in disbelief, the entire auditorium remained silent for a few minutes until the observers began to speak among one another:

"I can't believe it's Milla Basset!"

"I heard she left Shang Mu about two years ago, I guess she's back."

"OMG, can I have an autograph!"

"Yeah! I want one too!"

"Can I have an autograph Milla Basset!"

The hound slowly steps backwards as the audience became more demanding yet flattering, "Thank you but I'm a little busy, no really!" Milla argues as she continues to slowly walk backwards as the audience became more restless.

Chan hold on to Milla's shoulders from behind, "Hey, you can take the back exit, it should take you to the casino hall." he kindly whispers, "I'll drop a smoke bomb to distract the audience."

Milla nods in response and exits the theatre through the back entrance as Chan uses one smoke bomb as cover.

At the casino hall, the hound notices the large crowd of people exiting the auditorium, she ran towards the second floor entrance and exits the casino however the crowd notices the canine departing the casino and pursues the hound to the shopping mall. Milla realizes the increasing number of people chasing after her as she runs across the second floor of the plaza, in response the hound decides to hide in the girl's bathroom until the crowd calms down, _Finally some peace and quiet!_

In the girl's restroom Milla relaxes and waits for her fame to diminish, however one of the girls in the bathroom recognizes the basset hound, "No way! It's Milla Basset!" the girl acknowledges.

"I'm really not a big deal, please be quiet." Milla pleas.

"Hey! Milla Basset is here!"

Milla quick grabs the girl's mouth in response but the other girls in the restroom take notice of her, the hound quickly leaves the restroom and leans against the door, the canine then looks both ways and notices a lack of people. The basset hound began to cautiously walk through the mall until one person notice the basset hound, "Guys, she over there!"

The hound quickly runs from the emerging horde of fans towards a balcony however finds herself at a dead end, "No really, am I really a big deal?" Milla reasons as the crowd of people corners her.

"We just want an autograph!"

"And a couple of pictures!"

"And want to ask a couple of questions!"

"You know there's something called 'privacy', right?" Milla argues, the people discusses among each other in response.

While the crowd is distracted Milla jumps off the balcony in desperation, the sudden action amazes and intrigues the people. The canine generates a psychic blast from her feet to break her fall then performs a roll to maintain her footing and begins to run for the mall's exit.

Kai and Norah was waiting by the shopping mall's entrance, "Where do you think she went?" Norah asks.

"How should I know, I just hope she didn't get herself into other situation." Kai monotonously responds.

Both youths suddenly hear the multitude of people when they notice the missing youth running towards them; Milla was more focused on what was chasing her than to the other two youths which results in the hound running into the husky, causing both canines to land on the floor, "Well there she is!" Norah mocks.

"Watch where you're going Milla!" Kai snurls.

Milla quickly gets up in response, "Sorry, but let's leave this place… like as fast as possible, now!" she argues.

"What's the rush?", the husky maintains his monotonic voice.

Milla makes an impatient and annoyed face in response, she points towards the raging crowd behind her, "That's why!" the hound retorts.

Kai and Norah are intimidated by the hundreds of people running towards them, the sight was both frightening yet comical, "Alright, we really should be going." Norah infers.

Immediately the party exits the shopping mall with the crowd following right behind them.

"What on Avalice happened?!" Kai demands.

"I might have volunteered in a fight…" Milla explains in a soft tone.

"Seriously?!" Kai and Norah yells in unison.

"Look, I didn't expect _this _to happen, and honestly everything would've went a lot better… if I didn't use my psychic powers."

"Well, let's worry more about the crowd of people chasing after us… why exactly are they chasing us?" Norah asks.

"Well, they're not really angry. They're just a bunch of fans."

"So basically they want to be seen with their favorite heroine, how shallow." Kai concludes.

As the group ran down the streets of Shang Mu they hear someone from one of the alleyways, "This way, I promise you'll be safe here." the person spoke in a soft voice, a voice Milla recognizes. Although they questioned the person's intentions they didn't have much a choice, they enter the alley and meet a young fox with a heavy sword, "It's you again!" Milla acknowledges.

The fox made a warm smile as he gestures with short bow, "It's an honor to meet you in person Milla Basset, you're truly as beautiful as I've expected, your friend too." Chan flirts, Milla blushes in response as Norah, the 'friend' Chan was referring to, gestures with a disgusted look on her face which the fox ignores.

"Who the hell is this guy?!" Norah growls with her limbs engulfed in flames, the action intrigues the fox rather than intimidate him.

"I don't know, I just met him at the casino about fifteen minutes ago, he's apparently famous."

"Surely not as famous as you Milla, however I should introduce myself; my name is Chan." the vulpine explains, "You likely wondering why I helped you escape."

"I'd hardly call that helping, we could've entered any alleyway on our own." Kai argues.

"Ah, but I know this city as well as I know my homeland. You can say I have experience in these kind of environments."

"Why should we trust you?"

"What, we can't be friends?"

"Do you honestly expect us to be your friends after only knowing you for a few minutes!" Again the husky and panda speaks in unison.

"Well, didn't Milla here do the same with you two when you first met her?" Chan argument was spot on, although Norah reluctantly submits, Kai retains his expression soon making a faint narcissistic smile.

"If you honestly think I'm friends with them, then you're a fool. I'm only hanging around with them because I can." Kai blatantly proclaims, the hound and panda with him became morbidly silent and desolate.

"Well, that's a shame. I figured that sense you traveled together you would've been friends."

"I don't need to discuss 'friendship' with you. Norah did you get directions?"

Milla and Norah remained silent, the panda girl shakes her head spitefully.

"It appears you've offended them, luckily for you I'm here!"

Kai stood in disbelief as the other two youths ignores him in a spiteful manner as they follow the more cheerful vulpine, the canine reluctantly submits and follows the group who had alienated him.

After finally exiting the labyrinth of alleyways the group began to cross the street when a limousine suddenly appears before the group almost running them over, the vehicle fiercely stops spooking the youths who later hears a woman's voice, "Why did you stop!" the woman demands in an annoyed tone, she soon exits the vehicles and storms her way towards the driver before she notices the four frightened youths standing besides her.

The woman was a panda with white fur, white hair and yellow, almost golden eyes; she wore a red dress with red boots and had a golden diamond ring. Milla immediately recognizes the woman with the other youths still horrified by the possibility of them being flattened into paper, "M-Ming Zu?!" the hound acknowledges.

Ming analyses the basset hound and her peers, "Milla Basset, is that you?! I see your fashion sense have improved and is that a sword?" she mocks, Milla's face became peach red of embarrassment.

"Ah, well isn't this convenient! It appears to be an eventful day today, it's an honor to have our mayor's wife in our presence." Chan informs.

"Well, thank you! It's nice to see there's someone knows an important figure when they see one! Hey, you're that fox kid with the sword who've been getting pretty well known at the casino, aren't you?"

"Yup, that's me!"

"Oh I'm so sorry for teasing you earlier Milla! I didn't realize you were friends with such a gifted person like Chan Fokkusu, what about you two?" Ming moves her attention towards Kai and Norah.

"Kai." The husky introduces himself.

"Norah." The panda introduces herself.

"Well, I know you came here on official business, Zaoy told me all about it!"

"Zaoy?" Kai repeat in disgust.

"This is Mayor Zao's wife, Ming Zu? She's so… young…" Norah says to herself.

Both the husky and panda shudders at the thoughts that went through their heads as Milla and Chan enters the limousine, "Hey you two! Aren't you going to come in with us?" Ming calls in a self-dignified manner.

Kai and Norah enters the vehicle which takes them to the Shang Mu City Hall.


	16. Among the Shadows

**-16-**

The limousine arrives at the Shang Mu City Hall, it was about eight o'clock in the evening.

Ming Zu guides the four youths to the dining hall which consists of brown, beige and cream walls, red pillars with golden trims and a statue of a dragon made from bronze with gemstone eyes. The floor was made with marble and a large crimson rug was at the center of the room, the dining table resting on top of the rug had a total of 21 chairs.

As the youths enters the room they see Mayor Zao of Shang Mu, King Dail of Shuigang and another individual; Mayor Zao was a red panda with a napoleon complex who wore a red and yellow garment with a yellow cloak and black shoes however the most prominent part of his attire was his red hat which was almost the same height as himself, he was certainly older than his wife, likely around the ages of twenty-seven or twenty-eight; King Dail was also a panda, he had beige fur and black hair, he wore a green and yellow garment with a long yellow sash and black shoes of his own, he was younger as to be expected, he was about twenty-three years old.

"Hey sweetie, guess who I found!" Ming announces, referring to her husband.

Zao looks behind himself and sees the basset hound, "Who's the girl?"

"This is Milla Basset."

The mayor slowly examines the hound until he finally recognizes her, "I-I knew that!" he proclaims, "She's just older."

"I think that's usually how life works." Dail retorts.

"Don't talk back to me, I told you she's just older… that's why I didn't recognize her at first."

"Other than the new clothes and slightly longer hair she doesn't look very different."

"Well you can't expect me to remember everyone I've seen!"

"Seriously, she help saved our planet! How exactly are you an _elected_ official again?"

"What is that suppose to mean?!"

"It means you're an idiot and I don't understand how the likes of you is ruling a kingdom to begin with."

"Why you little brat!" Zao becomes aggressive, "You dare insult the greatest ruler of all of Avalice?!" **[+5 Pride]**

"You're as self-absorbed as you are incompetent it seems, last time I check you almost cause a world war."

"Because you stole the Kingdom Stone!"

"You stole it first, also I was brainwashed."

"Excuses!"

"Enough!" The third individual interrupts the argument with a commanding tone causing Ming and Milla to leap in surprise with the other youths impressed by the man's authority, "In case you two have forgotten, we are here on official business, so please let go of you foolish rivalry and why not welcome our humble guests."

Both pandas submits, however they cross each other with hostile stares.

The third individual was a bobcat who looked similar to Jie, except he was older and wore a white garment with golden outlines, "It's a pleasure to meet you Milla Basset, my name is Tuanjie Jilu, you already know my brother: Jie Jilu." Tuanjie welcomes the basset hound and the other youths.

"Thank you, so you're Jie's brother, he told me you would be here." Milla responds.

"Who exactly are the other three?" Zao demands.

"I'm sorry, these are some friends I met during my journey: Kai, Norah, and Chan."

"Well that's not entirely true, I just met her about a half hour ago." Chan explains with much courtesy, "However I'm quite honored to be in the presence of our world leaders."

"I like this guy!" Zao claims.

"I actually knew Milla before she came to Qin, let's just say something personal happened three years ago." Norah reflects, "Of course then I met her again about a few weeks ago."

"Pleasure to meet all of you, if you are friends to Milla then you are friends of mine." Dail welcomes in an informal tone, his voice was soft yet somewhat desolate.

Kai remains silent, Tuanjie retorts with a nostalgic smile which moves the husky in a negative fashion.

Dail and Zao immediately notices the husky's red scarf wrapped around his left arm, they respond with cautious expressions which the canine ignores with a cool demeanor, the bobcat's expression however continues to worry him.

"I should explain who I am to you all, I'm the diplomatic representative of the Araiansu." Tuanjie explains.

Kai's expression became petrified the moment the term 'Araiansu' was coined, _If he's really from the Araiansu… _

_Then does that mean he knows who I really am?_

Milla notices the husky's frozen expression, this was the first time the basset hound have seen any extreme emotion from the monotonic canine, "Kai are you alright?" she politely asks.

Kai gestures with a large gulp, "N-nothing, also why should you care, last time I check you and Norah alienated me." Kai retorts, maintaining his monotonic voice.

"Kai, I'm sorry about that, I guess you were serious when you said that you didn't join to make friends. Look at the bright side you won't have to deal with us when we get to Shang Tu." Milla reasons.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You know, the Red Scarves' base is at Shang Tu." the hound whispers into the husky's ear so that no one would hear her.

Kai remained silent.

"Well you all can have your dinner, I'll be relaxing at our room Zao." Ming announces, "Or maybe have a nice swim in my pool, who knows!"

"Whatever you want my dear." Zao reassures his wife, he then turns his focus back towards the basset hound who politely sat on a chair, "So, Milla what exactly were you doing in Qin?"

Milla notices the red panda referring to her, she makes a faint sigh as she prepares to explain everything to the prominent figures sitting in front of her, "Well… it was originally a personal journey, I was trying to look for my long lost parents." the comment catches both the husky and panda girl off guard, they had no idea of Milla's original intentions, for once Kai felt mildly sympathetic towards the hound, _she never told us about her parents…_

_Psh, why should I care?_

The group explained everything that had happened in the Qin empire: Jin sending Milla and Kai to Zhōngyāng; the group's arrest and sentence to the Zhōngyāng Arena; Serpentine's appearance at Zhōngyāng and Dōng mén; Kongzhi's conspiracy and Empress Yasmine's call for reform and desire for diplomacy.

Dail ponders on what he just heard regarding Serpentine, _So Serpentine is still slithering around on this planet and he's still loyal to Brevon even when with that virus dormant_. The panda king reverts his attention towards the youths, "So the empress of Qin wishes to make an alliance or at least a diplomatic agreement with Shang Mu, Shang Tu and Shuigang?"

Milla, Kai and Norah nods their heads in unison,

"If I do choose to make this alliance with the Qin Empire, what will I get in return?" Zao questions.

"Well, you already have good trade relations with Dōng mén, imagine what would happen if all of the empire's cities was under your economic influence." Norah reasons, she successfully catches the red panda's attention.

"Keep talking."

Everyone knew what Norah was attempting to do, the panda girl truly knew who she was bargaining with and knew very well of Zao's greed and desires which made him easy to manipulate.

Norah continues, "Other than the capital city of Zhōngyāng; one of the Qin Empire's cities, Běifēng, is known for it's large deposits of rich minerals, valuable gems and rare metals!"

Zao's eyes lit up, "Is that so? Well how can I deny such a request?!" **[+5 Profit]**

"Well good to hear!" Milla says cheerfully, "Dail?"

"Of course I'm going to say yes." Dail proclaims.

"I'm assuming you guys will be heading over to Shang Tu to speak with the Royal Magister, am I right?" Chan deducts after hearing every last detail, he starts to lean against his chair in a obscurely nonchalant fashion as he makes a faint smile, "I will like to accompany you on your quest!"

"No." Kai and Norah immediately responds in unison, however Milla ignores both the husky and panda girl.

"Sure, you can join us Chan." Milla responds, "We need all the help we can get!"

Norah exits the dining room in frustration, "May I be excused." Dail asks in response.

"Go ahead, I honestly don't care what you do." Zao explains, "JUST DON'T TAKE OR TOUCH ANYTHING!"

Tuanjie began to speak, "So Milla, I take it you had some training with both Jie and Jin"

"Yeah, it was hard at first but I pretty much can use my sword with ease now." Milla explains.

"They're great warriors and teachers, I remember when they were just learning themselves!" Tuanjie chuckles.

"So what is the Araiansu?"

"You don't know what the Araiansu is?" Chan acknowledges, "'Araiansu' translates to 'Alliance'."

"Alliance of what?"

Tuanjie explains, "An alliance of five clans; these clans, although they have their own leaders, governments and customs, are considered too small to represent the Avalician population, so in response the Araiansu was founded to represent the Móshù shī, the Shàobīng, the Qílín, the Nà jiā and the Yěmāo clans."

"Wow, and you're suppose to represent all of them?! Which clan are you from?"

"I'm from the Yěmāo."

Kai remains silent like always, the husky's consistent silence worries both Milla and Chan, the husky continues to think to himself, _Anyone could tell he's from the Yěmāo, just like how I know Vix is from the Móshù shī… _

* * *

Meanwhile Norah was leaning against a balustrade as she observe the beautiful view of the busy streets and glowing lights of Shang Mu, Dail walks towards the panda girl and stands next to her, "So how long have you really known Milla Basset?" he asks politely in a soft nostalgic tone.

"Eight years." Norah responds in a similar tone.

"Hmph, well then I guess it's a small world… So you're mage, like your mother?"

"_Like_?!"

"Hey, I've known you since you were born, while father would go on official business your mother would watch over me and my brother, I'm grateful for that."

"What did happen to your brother?"

"You won't like the answer to that question." The male panda makes a large sigh, "He's now with the Red Scarves."

Norah was both shocked and horrified at the thought, she knew that Dail's brother had left the royal family but would have never imagined him to become associated with the Red Scarves.

"Honestly, you think you can talk some sense into him these days… then you really have been missing out. He've became more distant everyday since he became a Red Scarf, even more after what happened to me two years ago."

"You don't think he've forgotten about me."

"He may have changed but he has proven that he still have a heart, surely he would recognize you, he was always closer to you than me even though we share the same blood."

"My mother?"

"You'll see her at Shang Tu."

"Shang Tu?!"

"You can blame me, well… not entirely… but it was still me…"

Norah understood what Dail meant.

"Also, Mayor Zao arranged rooms for you four to sleep in."

"Alright, I'm going to bed now. Good night."

"Good night to you too, Nora"

* * *

At the roof tops, a group of hooded figures were spying over the group of youths.

"So, that bratty dog is back… and she brought some new allies, one of them is our own" The leader of the squadron acknowledges.

"According to our sources she defeated Serpentine back at the Qin Empire, she also appears to have learned some new tricks." one cloaked person explains, a male.

"Her companions consist of a siberian husky named Kai, who's one of our own; a panda named Norah, who's a mercenary; finally a fox named Chan, who's an entertainer." another cloaked person continues, a female.

"They're scheduled to head over to Shang Tu to speak with the Royal Magister."

"What should we do?"

"Let's inform Jai, if they're heading over to Shang Tu then there's no need to intervene now." The leader commands.

The cloaked figures immediately exits the rooftops however the leader remains for a couple more minutes, closely observing Norah, _That panda girl seems familiar, who is she and why does she know my brother?_


End file.
